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Skies of Ash

Page 27

by Rachel Howzell Hall


  He jammed up Bluff Creek Drive, then darted left to cut through Aiden’s side yard.

  I ran in the same direction, anger fueling my speed.

  He hopped over the short perimeter fence, but the cuff of his cargo shorts caught. He stumbled and slid down the slope.

  I swung my legs over the fence and dove after him.

  Together, we tumbled through sharp twigs and bark and dropped to the sidewalk.

  He tried to stand while swinging his fist.

  I tried to duck—too slow.

  His knuckles glanced my left cheekbone.

  I saw stars but recovered to strike him in the face with a single palm-heel hit.

  He grabbed his nose and crumpled back onto the sidewalk.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted at him. “Why did you run from me?”

  Eli Moss growled at me as blood from his nostrils gushed between his fingers.

  “Answer me,” I said, raising my hand again, “before I beat your fucking face—”

  Someone caught my fist before it met Moss’s nose.

  “Relax, Lou,” Aiden yelled, breathing hard, clenching my fist. “It’s okay.”

  I tried to pull free from the muscled man, but his grip held me like a vise.

  Aiden nodded but tightened his grip. “It’s okay.”

  Seven minutes later, Eli Moss, restrained by handcuffs, was shoved into the backseat of a police cruiser.

  I glimpsed down at my bloody feet—from Moss’s nose and from sharp twigs and rock. Pain zigzagged from the bottom of my body to the top. I clenched to will it away.

  No good.

  My knees buckled, and I sank to the wet grass.

  A damp breeze from the ocean washed over me, and I lay there, too calm, too cold.

  This was all a dream.

  I closed my eyes against the swirling blue and red lights of cop cars and fire trucks, closed my eyes and waited to burst through vivid slumber into the waking world.

  48

  FRIDAY NIGHTS AT THE PACIFIC DIVISION WERE NO DIFFERENT THAN FRIDAY NIGHTS AT Southwest. Drunks, wife beaters, gangbangers, babymommas with toddlers on hips and pink bail slips in free hands, terrified high school kids huddled on benches as they waited for their parents to arrive. And tonight, an arsonist.

  Through the one-way glass, I watched Adonis Thistle, the stocky black detective from the Arson Unit, interrogate Eli Moss.

  Greg placed a pair of socks and sneakers at my feet, then stepped back to the doorway.

  I winced while slipping on the anklets and the shoes. Other than a tender cheek, a fiery headache, and cut-up feet, I felt like crap dunked in bile and blood, then twisted dry—and then frozen, thawed, and reheated, but only halfway.

  “Why were you at Detective Norton’s home this evening?” Thistle demanded as he leaned forward with his knuckles on the metal table.

  Eli Moss, swollen-nosed and red-faced, shouted, “That bitch hit me.”

  “I should go in there and beat him down,” Greg mumbled.

  I killed my third bottle of water and kept my eyes on the scene in the box.

  “Why did you have a bag of leaves in the back of your SUV?” Thistle asked.

  Moss crossed his arms, then tucked his chin into his chest. “Why was I assaulted by a cop?”

  “Why were there candles, lighters, and kerosene in the back of your SUV? Why were you recording the fire?”

  “This is America,” Moss shouted back. “I can carry whatever the fuck I want in the back of my SUV and record whatever the fuck I wanna record.”

  Thistle banged his palm on the table.

  Moss jumped in his seat, his bruised face darkening even more. “I don’t even know what this is about. I don’t even know why I’m here. She chased me down like a dog, then assaulted me for no reason.”

  Thistle gaped at him. “You kiddin’ me with that bullshit, ain’t you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t, either.”

  “I know that you swung at her first—there were people on the scene who will testify to that.” Thistle pointed at him with a crooked finger. “It’s over, son. You fucked up real good, you know that? Tryin’ to burn down a cop’s house? That’s what this is about.”

  Moss found interest in his scraped knuckles. But his jiggling knee betrayed his feigned indifference.

  “He’s not gonna talk,” Greg declared. “He’s gonna just sit there and ask for a lawyer, who’ll say that his client was gardening and the candles belong to his wife, and the cop beat him down for no good reason, and he’s gonna sue us for everything we got.”

  Dread filled my gut as I considered Greg’s prediction.

  “Lou,” Greg whispered. “Baby.”

  I grunted: I knew that “Lou” and I knew that “Baby”—apple pie, testosterone, and silver mulled into a salve.

  He poured it on every time he wanted to be forgiven.

  I glanced at him. “Not now, Gregory.”

  He sighed: he knew that “Gregory”—razor blades, arsenic, and lemons.

  Sammy Khan, Thistle’s partner, joined us. “So he the one who started the Chatman house fire, too?”

  Greg gawked at Khan. “The Chatman…?” Then, he gawked at me. “That asshole in there is connected to one of your cases?”

  I started to speak, but my tongue lay in my mouth like a stomped-on slug.

  Sammy Khan took a step back. “Maybe I should let you two—”

  “Your job almost burned down my house and got you killed?” Greg bellowed.

  I crossed my arms. “You don’t need an excuse anymore, remember?”

  Greg gaped at me, and then his shoulders slumped. He peered at the ceiling and chuckled. “You’re right. I don’t. I’m out of here.”

  I waved my hand at the door. “Be out, then.” I turned my back to him and directed my gaze to Detective Thistle and Eli Moss.

  Greg stomped to the exit.

  My chest tightened, and something there expanded, tightened, and then—pop.

  Heartbreak. Again.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15

  49

  AT ALMOST THREE O’CLOCK ON A SATURDAY MORNING, I SHOULD HAVE BEEN HOME hitting another round of REM sleep. But I didn’t want to go home, not after the fire, not after the fight—with Greg and with Eli Moss. Going home meant seeing ribbons of yellow police tape blocking off my destroyed yard. Going home meant smelling ashes and wet earth and the exhaust of fire trucks and firemen. So I asked Adonis Thistle to drive me to my station seven miles away.

  Two miles in, he looked over to me. “Want me to turn back so you can kick Moss’s ass some more?”

  I zipped up my jacket with an aching hand and muttered, “No. I’m…” I could barely form words now—my face had stiffened from the arsonist’s punch.

  In my mind, I saw Eli Moss sitting in the interview room, blood-pressure cuff around his right arm and pneumographs on his chest. I saw Officer Lipsky peering at his laptop, then asking Moss question after question.

  Do you intend to answer the polygraph questions truthfully?

  Did you participate in any way in causing the death of Juliet Chatman?

  Do you know who caused the death of Chloe Chatman?

  Did you start the fire at the Chatman house?

  Then, Lipsky had left Moss in the box to tell me that the suspect had passed the exam. “He’s an arsonist, but right now he ain’t lookin’ like a murderer.”

  I had crossed my arms—I didn’t believe that Moss needed to be dismissed so quickly. He had set the other fires around the neighborhood, and he had filmed the Chatman house fire. Of course he would come after me and burn down my house—I was investigating the murders of three people he had killed.

  And polygraphs? Not hard science. Unreliable. Inadmissible in court. Usually.

  Moss had also claimed to have an alibi. At work at the airport. Hell, everybody’s at work when they burn shit down and kill people.

  Before leaving Pacific, Sammy Khan h
ad patted my shoulder. “We’ll check out his alibi, Lou. Do some more digging around. We ain’t lettin’ this go, all right? If he has anything to do with the Chatman fire, we’ll let you know ASAP.”

  Now, Thistle pulled up to the front of Southwest Division, then touched my arm. “We protect our own—you know we’re gonna get that bastard. Don’t worry ’bout that.”

  I gave him a weak but grateful smile. “I’ve always told myself: if my house ever burns down, I want Adonis Thistle to work it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “The truth.”

  “And if truth was a whore,” he said, “I’d buy her a drink and ask her where the hell she’s been all my life.”

  The lobby was unusually quiet for an early Saturday morning. Swope, the pasty-faced desk sergeant, gawked at me—first, for limping through the glass doors at that time of night, and second, for, well… my face. “You get run over by a Sherman tank?”

  “Thought I’d switch up my look this evening,” I said, limping past him.

  “You need one of them spa days you chicks like. Bathe in the mud and put them zucchinis on your eyes. And a sirloin on your cheek.”

  “Cucumbers go on your eyes.” I stopped at the elevator. “Anything going on?”

  He shook his head. “Pretty quiet up there. No one got dead tonight. But then we got four hours to go. Plenty of time to ruin a pleasant evening with some ass-clown totin’ an Uzi.”

  There was no one in the women’s locker room. I pulled jeans and an LAPD T-shirt from my gym bag, then stood beneath the jets of shower water as pounds of blood, dirt, and anxiety washed off my body and into the drain. After toweling off, I dabbed Neosporin over every cut place. Clean and feeling lighter inside and out, I retreated to the squad room and to my desk and to the growing stacks of reports, photographs, and diagrams—all connected to the Chatman case. Only two dicks worked the phones, and as I trudged past them, neither looked away from their own oceans of casework.

  I collapsed into my chair, my mind empty and full at the same time.

  By now, Colin was probably spooning with Dakota. The same with Pepe and his rocket scientist. And Luke—he was either sleeping next to Lupita or next to one of his badge bunnies. And here I was, fresh from my attempt to have a “personal life,” with tonight’s adventures featuring pink drinks, pole dancing, insurance attorneys, fights with husbands and arsonists, and declarations of divorce.

  Viewer discretion advised. Do not attempt this at home.

  I studied Colin’s and my handwriting on the whiteboard propped on the file cabinet.

  COUSIN FOR RECOVERY SARCOMA—MSK / PROFESSOR—UNLV / CH FIRM—DOES HE STILL WORK THERE? / KEMPER $$$ JULIET—DIVORCE / CANCER, SUICIDE—BELLAGIO / SIGNIFICANCE OF VLG CHKS???

  Then, I added, SECURITIES FRAUD (!!), 2 CM TUMOR.

  “What am I missing?” I whispered. These are all trees. I need the forest. Now.

  I grabbed the murder book from Colin’s desk, hoping that the quiet of the squad room would help me see something in the report, something in the statements and pictures I had studied since catching the case back on Tuesday. The fifth day of this investigation, and I had learned about a not-mistress and bad loans and Valium. But who set the fire? Without hard (or even medium-well) evidence that Chatman had started the blaze, directly or indirectly, I only had a liar and a thief. But not a murderer.

  Eli Moss—he was a professional liar and a serial pyro. He had attempted to destroy my house. But he had passed the murder parts of his lie-detector test. He was at work the night of the Chatman fire. Of course he was.

  So what?

  Maybe Moss had passed the murder parts of the poly because maybe he had not truly and sincerely intended to kill the Chatmans. Just… burn down their house. Maybe?

  Nothing was certain in this case—not even “up is down” and “down is up.” With the Chatman case, “up” was “strawberry,” and “down” was “washing machine.”

  I ran my tongue across the inside of my cut lip, then closed the big binder. My eyes found those words again on the whiteboard. Suicide, cancer… And then it overpowered me—exhaustion, and lots of it. Even as I started to snore and drift off to sleep, the Chatman case kept at me. At first, a mosquito’s quiet buzz, but then a beehive on steroids. But the buzzing softened… shushed… ssh…

  “L.T. brought donuts!”

  Colin’s voice pulled me from sleep.

  Where am I?

  My body creaked as I lifted my head off the desk.

  At work. Still.

  Pepe ambled toward my cubicle. “Hey, Lou! You better—” His eyes swept over me. “What the hell?”

  Colin and Luke, standing at the coffeepot, heard Pepe’s half question and turned in our direction.

  Luke said, “Oh shit.”

  Colin rushed over to me, anger sparking off of him, his face the color of cranberries and grape jam. “Did Greg—?”

  “No,” I said, holding up my hand.

  “You said you two were fighting.”

  “Colin,” I said. “Relax.”

  He crouched before me. “You protectin’ that son of a bitch?”

  “Last night,” I said, “Eli Moss thought he was Tyson and I was Givens.”

  “Moss?” Luke asked. “The white guy who lives across the street from the Chatmans?”

  I nodded, then launched into the story about the beautiful young detective decorating her Christmas tree, then discovering that her house was on fire. She had brawled in the streets with the Burning Man, who had passed his polygraph test and had provided an unconfirmed alibi that took him out of the running for starting the fatal Chatman house fire.

  “But you don’t believe that,” Colin said.

  I shook my head, then shrugged.

  “But why did he target you?” Luke asked.

  “Because she’s investigating the Chatman case,” Pepe said.

  “If Moss didn’t burn down the Chatman house and if he didn’t kill them,” I said, “why would he care what I did? Why me?” I touched my swollen, tender cheek. “I look like a piece of shit now. Just like you guys, but with better… everything.”

  Pepe and Luke tried to laugh. Colin’s hands tightened into fists.

  “Luke,” I said, “can you and Pep check on warrants we have out with Judge Keener?”

  “No problem.” He and Pepe wandered back to the box of donuts.

  Colin came out of his crouch to tower over me. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “It was late, and I had already—”

  “Sent me away?”

  “It’s not your job to take care of me.”

  “Where was your husband?”

  “I wouldn’t let him take care of me, either. And nowadays he’s the kind of caretaker that puts you in a playpen, scatters a few Cheerios on the cushions, and turns the TV on before he leaves. And I hate Cheerios.”

  “Not funny,” he grumbled.

  I nudged his calf with my foot. “I’m sorry, Colin. Next time an arsonist tries to burn down my house and beat me up, I’ll text you. Then you can watch me kick his ass in person.”

  Colin tried to smile, but only one side of his mouth lifted. He took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. “Can I do anything for you now?”

  “You can get me something better than that swill over there.” I pointed to the goop bubbling in the coffeepot.

  “Sure. Be right back.”

  I watched him leave the room.

  And the world righted itself.

  But then my desk phone rang.

  “Yo, yo, Lou Norton.” It was Gus Lebo from Vegas Homicide.

  “What’s up, my friend?” I asked, smiling.

  “Any other time, I would describe to you in explicit detail what is indeed up whenever I call.”

  “But not today,” I said. “Cuz something or somebody has jacked up your vibe.”

  “Melissa Kemper.”

  “Delightful lady. Likes little dogs and other people’s husbands.”

 
; “Well, other people ain’t gotta worry about her and their husbands no more.”

  According to Gus, at 9:04 A.M. that morning, a truck driver, Earl Littleton, had lost control of his rig (one of those trucks that advertise strip joints) and plowed into the backs and fronts of three cars. Including the late-model Jag driven by Melissa Kemper.

  “Had to use the spreaders and rams to get folks out,” Gus Lebo said. “I’m sending you some pics of the scene.”

  “She dead?” I whispered.

  “Elvis is more alive than she is.”

  Six JPEGs popped into my mailbox: Melissa Kemper on the Clark County coroner’s steel table, her glazed, green eyes fixed, her purple running shorts and Paramount Studios T-shirt dark with drying blood.

  “Oh shit,” I said, feeling a quick lick of nausea in my gut.

  “When you talked to her, was she helpful at all?”

  “Yeah,” I said, closing the last picture. “She confirmed that my suspect is a big, fat liar and all-around jerk-wad.” After I gave him the Twitter version of my interview with Melissa Kemper, I sat back in my chair and said, “Wow. Didn’t see this coming.”

  “If I wasn’t such a cynic,” he said, “and this wasn’t Vegas, I’d say that some type of fuckery is goin’ on. But…”

  I heard the shrug in his voice. “Alas…”

  “Where’s the husband?” Gus asked.

  “Her ex-husband or my dead vic’s husband?”

  “Dead vic’s.”

  “I could say that he’s here in Los Angeles.” I regarded the whiteboard full of lies. “But I wouldn’t put five on it.”

  Damn.

  Melissa Kemper. Dead.

  I knew the world couldn’t stay right.

  50

  THE SOUTHWEST DIVISION’S FORENSIC-TECH DEPARTMENT, LOCATED IN THE darkest corner of the second floor, consisted of one large cubicle that sat four. Only one member of the team had clocked in today. His momma called him Neil, but we called him Bang-Bang because that’s all he did every day—go bang-bang on computer keyboards. Neil was a John Smith–looking white guy with nothing offensive or interesting about his appearance, especially now that he’d had the mole on his cheek removed. He was sipping a glass of water as numbers and letters scrolled across his computer screen.

 

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