Powder Burn

by Ty Patterson

  Cutter brooded and mourned for his partner as the packed aluminum tube traversed the curve of the earth.

  ‘If you need any help …’ the air hostess’s cheeks dimpled in a smile as he was leaving.

  ‘I won’t, but thanks,’ he said, forcing a smile in return. She wasn’t to blame for how he was feeling. He strode through the terminal and donned his shades when he stepped out into the August late-afternoon heat.

  He flagged a cab and gave the driver an East Hollywood address. Looked blindly out the window as blue skies and buildings merged and became a liquid line of construction, residences and commercial buildings as the cab sped through the traffic.

  It circled the edge of downtown LA and dumped him half an hour later on North Heliotrope Drive.

  A line of single and multifamily residences on one side, some kind of low-slung office building on the other.

  The house he wanted was in front of him. A chest-high concrete wall running around it, separating it from the residences on either side. A ficus on the sidewalk just outside the wrought-iron gate threw a large shadow, offering respite from the heat.

  The gate squeaked when he opened it. A middle-aged woman peered over the wall and checked him out as he walked up the concrete path set into the lush lawn of the front yard. Four palm trees and several flowering plants dotted the garden. Ms. Neighbor continued watching him when he climbed the porch, inserted his key in the door and entered the still house.

  Vienna McDonald, Arnedra’s elder sister, lived alone. No spouse or partner. She had never married and had taken her mother’s second name. Her passion for working with nonprofits had taken her around the world. Her last overseas job had been with the United Nations in Kenya, and then she had returned to the States to train as a paramedic. The Los Angeles Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services Bureau had recruited her immediately, and the city had been her home for over a decade.

  Arnedra helped her buy this home, Cutter mused as he checked out the cool interiors of the house. Warm colors, soft carpet, pictures and awards in the living room, two couches that showed signs of use, a TV screen in a corner.

  He picked up a photograph from a chest of drawers and inspected it: Arnedra and Vienna in happier times, their smiles brilliant white in contrast to their darker skin. His lips turned up involuntarily at their joy. He wandered around the house, inspecting the kitchen, dining room and the backyard, in which was another exquisitely maintained garden. He went up the stairs to the three bedrooms.

  Nothing in any room other than personal belongings, clothing, suitcases, books. No clue why they had been killed.

  Still, he searched every room. Checked out floors and walls to see if there were any hidden compartments or crevices in which drugs, guns or money could be stashed.

  All he found were photographs and journals and letters from loved ones. Bank statements and forgotten receipts and bills.

  They were all that remained of a life lived fully.

  3

  ‘I’m a family friend, ma’am,’ Cutter told Ms. Neighbor, who was still watching when he went out. ‘Arnedra, Vienna’s sister, was my business partner in New York. We were close. I met Vienna a few times when she came to visit.’

  ‘You heard about it?’ the suspicion in her eyes faded when he showed her a photograph on his phone, of him with the sisters at a diner in New York.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Got a call from the cops yesterday.’

  The Catskills shootout had been less than twenty-four hours ago, but it felt like an eternity.

  ‘Vienna was so happy,’ the neighbor said, then introduced herself as Naysha Sutton, a city worker. ‘We got along together like a house on fire. I was right there when she moved in. Trayvon, Alisha and Jonas, my kids and husband, we helped her settle in. We barbecued together, had parties in our backyards …’ Her lips quivered. She sniffled and angrily brushed her tears away.

  ‘No,’ she said, reading his question. ‘She wasn’t into drugs. None of that for her. The cops came round today, in the morning, and I told them the same thing. Vienna didn’t have enemies. Heck, even her former boyfriends, she was on good terms with them.’

  ‘You met Arnedra, ma’am? When she arrived here?’

  ‘Yeah, many times before as well. I liked her.’ Her teary eyes widened. ‘You’re Cutter Grogan?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Holy sh—’ She cut herself off quickly. ‘We saw you on TV a few times. You were responsible for that gang takedown.’

  ‘It wasn’t just me, ma’am. Arnedra was involved in it as well. FBI, NYPD, several agencies. I played a small role. The media, they blew it up, you know how they are.’

  Naysha Sutton waved his self-deprecation away and urged him to her house. Over coffee and cookies, she plied him with questions, and when her husband, son and daughter joined, the gathering turned into dinner and weepy reminiscing about Vienna.

  It was eleven pm when Cutter left them, knowing nothing more of why the sisters had been killed, or by whom. The cops had given the Suttons the same bland message that Diego Cruz the detective had given him: that the women had been murdered in a gang attack.

  I’ve got friends at the LAPD, he thought, gazing at the trail of a passenger aircraft as it flew high above him in the night sky.

  No. There was another house he wanted to check out.

  The kill site.

  4

  Cutter took a cab to Beverly Hills, the upscale neighborhood populated by high-fliers and shot-callers in the movie business.

  The driver sized him up in the rearview mirror, taking in his Tee tucked into jeans, sneakers, and the backpack over his shoulder.

  ‘You a model?’

  ‘Nope,’ he replied curtly, hoping his brusque answer would be enough to silence the man’s curiosity.

  ‘It’s my first night in a cab,’ the man confided. ‘I had to take this job when my startup collapsed. My first time driving to Beverly Hills, too.’

  LA was like that. It was the West Coast’s answer to New York. A magnet that drew people from all over the country and the world. Many of them fleeing the colder eastern cities, pursuing a dream of making it big in the film or glamor industry. Or the burgeoning tech one.

  They went down quiet streets noticeably different from Vienna McDonald’s in East Hollywood. Larger trees on the sidewalk, all of them neatly trimmed. Well-lit roads, high concrete walls, behind which the tops of houses were sometimes visible through foliage.

  He got the driver to drop him off at Tower Grove and walked up Beverly Grove Drive. A steep, curving street that rose up the hill, dotted with exclusive residences. A Porsche slid past and illuminated him briefly. A Ferrari growled and slowed. Its driver window lowered and a blonde eyed him speculatively and then sped away.

  Not many walk here. She must be wondering if I’m a hobo. Or part of a home invasion crew. His lips twisted sardonically.

  The air turned cooler and the city’s sounds fell away as he went higher, until he came to a hairpin bend—and there it was.

  The murder house.

  An open garage, which was empty. A rolling metal gate, which was closed. Police tape across the front. Lights inside the house, but no sound of any occupants, no cruisers in sight.

  Cutter noted the camera and shrugged.

  So what if someone was monitoring the house? He vaulted nimbly over the barrier and stepped onto the driveway. The front was as large as a tennis court, with a garden and several fountains that were still. Plants and flowers withering from neglect. Only the lights suggested that someone was attending to the house.

  He went up to the door. Locked.

  Went down the side of the house and climbed inside through a window that was partly open. A large room that smelled of dead air. He turned on the flashlight on his phone and navigated through the darkness. Some kind of reception room, a hallway beyond, another large room. Kitchen, which seemed to be equipped with every modern convenience, a dining room whose black surfaces gleamed in the nigh
t. More rooms that he checked out carefully, and then another living room with floor-to-ceiling windows and doors, one of which slid back noiselessly and opened to a patio.

  Cutter crouched over the two blobs of darkness on the concrete. Dried blood from Vienna and Arnedra’s bodies. Police markings on the floor that showed where they had lain. He took a deep breath and got to his feet. Went to the patio and looked out at the vastness of Los Angeles laid out before him.

  The house was perched on the side of the hill, with just a sturdy glass wall separating it from the steep drop. He took in the conglomeration of lights and yellow glow that stood out from the surrounding dimness that wasn’t LA.

  The Tongva, the original indigenous occupants of the land, had been driven out by settlers from Mexico, Sonora, Franciscan priests and Spanish colonizers, in a centuries-old cycle repeated around the world.

  How Los Angeles came to be called the City of Angels was a matter of some dispute, but the name obviously had a nice ring to it and had stuck.

  He checked out the darkness of the neighboring hill, where a few lights twinkled. More houses, higher up, discreetly hidden by nature and artful construction.

  Cutter turned his back on LA’s sprawl and looked again at the dark splotches on the concrete. The numbness left him, replaced by rage and fury that consumed him until all he could see was darkness. As the earth rotated and revolved, those, too, faded, until he was left with cold detachment and a simple resolve.

  Screw the cops. He was going to find out who the killers were.

  He was The Fixer. He would deliver his justice.

  And that was when the house’s lights suddenly turned on and a voice yelled.

  ‘RAISE YOUR HANDS. STEP AWAY FROM THE WALL.’

  5

  Cutter lifted his hands and took a couple of steps towards the patio door. Two men in civilian clothes pointed their guns at him. Behind them, a line of patrol cops with their weapons similarly trained.

  He cursed himself for his negligence. I was facing the house. I should have seen them coming.

  ‘Are you armed?’ the cop on the left barked. He was dark-haired, with silver in his long sideburns that caught the lights.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘What’s in your backpack?’ his companion—lean face, watchful eyes—asked.

  Cutter tossed his bag at them, at which they jerked sideways and tightened their grips on their guns.

  ‘HEY!’ the first speaker yelled. ‘YOU WANT TO GET KILLED?’

  ‘Diego,’ the second cop hissed, ‘that’s Grogan.’

  Diego’s eyes flickered over Cutter. The anger on his face diminished.

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re alone?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s in your backpack?’

  ‘Clothing. See for yourself.’

  A patrol officer came forward and checked out the bag. Nodded at them and threw it back at Cutter, who caught it one-handed and slung it over his shoulder.

  ‘Diego Cruz, detective, LAPD—I’m the one who called you.’

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘That’s Vance Matteo,’ the cop said, nodding at his partner, who holstered his weapon. ‘He’s the lead on this.’

  ‘We thought you’d come see us at the bureau.’

  You thought wrong.

  How come LAPD’s involved in this? Cutter didn’t voice his thought. No need to be aggressive with them. They saw me as an intruder at a crime scene. I should have expected their armed approach. ‘Beverly Hills PD should have jurisdiction here.’

  Los Angeles County had eighty-eight incorporated cities within it. Beverly Hills was one of them, a city surrounded by the larger Los Angeles. It had its own police department and, judging by the tape outside the house, those cops had been the first responders.

  ‘Joint Task Force,’ Matteo replied laconically. ‘I lead it. Cruz is my deputy. Gus Estrada, detective, BHPD, is on it.’

  ‘We have the bigger police department.’ Cruz shrugged. ‘More resources. The two chiefs agreed that LAPD should lead it.’

  ‘The shooting happened yesterday,’ Cutter replied, his eyebrows raised, ‘and a task force is already in place?’

  Matteo walked past him and leaned over the concrete and glass wall to look at the city, leaving it to his deputy to answer.

  ‘The task force was formed before this killing,’ Cruz explained patiently. If he was irritated with the lead detective’s boss man, he didn’t show it. ‘Both Vance and I are from GND, Gang —’

  ‘And Narcotics Division. I know how the LAPD’s organized,’ Cutter interrupted. Cruz’s explanation was enough for him. He didn’t need to know the details of the task force. He had come across enough of those to know how they worked. ‘What happened here?’

  Matteo swung around at that, his brows furrowed in astonishment. ‘You don’t know? You don’t follow the news?’

  ‘Why would I ask if I did?’

  ‘There was a shootout. Two gangs going at each other.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yeah. This house has been deserted for some time. It belonged to Teafo Castro, a Mexican cartel distributor. He was arrested by the Feds last year. This place was seized by the FBI. The agency sold it later, but it has been mired in lawsuits. Various people popping out of the woodwork claiming ownership. This kind of property—remote, its own security—it became a hangout for drug dealers, users, couples looking for romantic spots, sunset watchers. BHPD keeps clearing it out, but they always return. We got reports of shots yesterday. Neighbors said it felt like a war … we found the bodies when we arrived.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ Cutter asked incredulously.

  ‘No.’ A muscle jumped in Matteo’s cheek. ‘Brass, a lot of it. Some guns, AR-15s, some Kalashnikovs—we’re trying to trace those to weapons in our system. No other bodies. No witnesses.’

  ‘Houses in this neighborhood will have security cameras. Heck, this place has them.’

  ‘We got blurred images of SUVs. Three of them from neighboring residences. No license plates. Tech people are using some fancy AI software to see if they can clean up the faces. I wouldn’t bet much on it.’

  Cutter looked at him and Cruz. He ran his fingers through his hair wearily as he got hold of himself. There was no point raging at the cops. They can’t conjure up evidence.

  He sighed and joined the lead detective at the wall. The two men looked at the city in silence until Cruz cleared his throat.

  ‘There’s something else you should know.’

  He turned at the tone in the detective’s voice and looked at him sharply.

  The cop hesitated and then thrust his chin forward at a nod from Matteo. ‘Both the women were tortured before they were shot.’

  ‘Tell him everything,’ the lead detective growled.

  ‘And sexually assaulted,’ Cruz added.

  6

  For a moment Cutter thought he hadn’t heard correctly. ‘Tortured and raped?’ he repeated.

  ‘Their nails were pulled out, there were cuts on their bellies, chests and thighs.’ Cruz looked away from his burning stare. ‘And yes, sexually attacked.’

  Cutter looked up when he heard the throbbing of a chopper and then realized the sound was coming from inside him. It was the pounding of his blood, loud in his ears as the banked fury burst and filled him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Cruz’s voice came distantly.

  ‘GROGAN?’ Matteo called out loudly.

  ‘Yeah,’ he mumbled and forced himself to unclench his fists. He sucked lungfuls of air until the pulsing faded and the night and the light breeze returned.

  ‘Semen?’ he swallowed. ‘Hair, skin, DNA?’

  ‘None of the former.’ The lead cop sighed. ‘We’re working on the second.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Yeah, both were assaulted.’

  I asked Arnedra to come to LA. I told her she would be safe from that supremacist gang, he thought bitterly.


  ‘Come down tomorrow, to headquarters.’ Matteo glanced at his watch. ‘We’ll brief you fully.’

  ‘How did you get here?’ Cruz asked him.

  ‘Cab,’ Cutter forced himself to reply normally.

  ‘We’ll give you a ride. Where are you staying?’

  ‘Vienna’s house. East Hollywood.’

  He got into the back of Matteo’s unmarked car, while Cruz got into the front. The lead detective rolled down his window and instructed the patrol cops to secure the house.

  Cutter didn’t break the silence until they were nearing their destination.

  ‘How did you know I was there?’

  ‘Patrol car in a neighbor’s driveway.’ Cruz met his eyes in the rearview mirror. ‘We’ve been keeping watch to see if any bangers return.’

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘You’re the only one who turned up.’

  He climbed out when the car rolled to a stop on North Heliotrope. Pocketed Matteo’s card, which the detective handed over, and thanked the cops.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be down tomorrow,’ he told them and turned to the gate.

  He waited until their tail lights disappeared behind a turn and pulled out his cell.

  One am. He’ll be awake.

  ‘Chad?’ he asked when a voice answered.

  ‘Yeah, you know what time it—Cutter? That you?’

  ‘I’m in town. I need some gear.’

  ‘And you think the middle of the night is the best time for it?’ Chad groused, though there was no rancor in his voice. ‘All right,’ he continued when Cutter didn’t respond. ‘Come on over.’

  * * *

  Chad Liu: armorer to covert operatives, those who had to gear up by themselves when they were deep undercover. Former Delta who ran a gun range in Culver City. Outfitting trusted friends was a side gig that had required him to modify his home and convert the garage into a secure weapons storage. He was well-connected to the cops, many of whom bought their backup weapons from Chad, and that, along with largely selling licensed weapons, had helped him stay clean.