City of Fire (31 page)

The man gave him another kick. So hard he thought his leg might be broken. He moaned, then shook the pain off and climbed to his feet as best he could. His legs were shaky, his body quivering as he removed his robe and nearly died from embarrassment. He could feel the man looking at it, measuring it, not turning the fuck away.

He wondered if what was about to happen qualified as rape. He was certain that it did. If he could do it privately, he would prosecute the rotten son of a bitch to the full extent of the law. But as he pulled on the gown, well aware that the clothing remained open in the back and his ass hung out, a faint glimmer of hope rose to the surface. The man picked up his bottle of Viagra. He was reading the label. Thinking something over that Burell couldn’t quite grasp.

“You want that bottle, take it,” he said. “It’s on me, pal. I’ve got a whole case in the office. I get it cheap over the Internet. Works like an insurance policy but it still takes time. At least one hour, sometimes two.”

At least one hour, sometimes two.
More than enough time to figure a way out of this.

The man’s smile changed, almost as if he had come to some kind of decision. And then he pushed Burell over to the hospital set, tossed him on the bed, and started laughing.

Burell panicked, clawing at the sheets and weeping in a frenzy. “We’ll do it tomorrow,” he blurted out. “If you don’t like girls, we’ll find a guy. Another stud just like you. There’s a market for that stuff. You could still make a lot of dough.”

The man didn’t seem to hear him. All he wanted to do was laugh. And it was a high-pitched laugh that lacked control. Giddy and hideous at the same time. The most horrifying sound Burell had ever heard.

And then the man made an unexpected move. Without warning, the bodybuilder shoved a pill down Burell’s throat. He sputtered. When he finally realized through the mental confusion that it was Viagra, he tried to spit it out. He could see his face in the mirror by the bed. The massive hands clutching his throat. His broken teeth and the pins in his gums. His bright red cheeks shuddering. His entire body a bundle of raw nerves.

He’d swallowed it.

When he tried to turn away, he felt another pill being jabbed into his mouth and started gagging on the guy’s finger. He swallowed this one, too.

He squirmed onto his back and looked up at the giant, pleading silently as their eyes met. Too many little blue pills and his heart might blow.

He lowered his eyes, noticing for the first time that the man was wearing a pair of vinyl gloves. It dawned on Burell that the naked giant hadn’t come to the house because he was feeling horny or wanted to become a porno star.

The art of any negotiation was understanding what your opponent really wanted.

He’d miscalculated. He’d blown the deal. Sadness rushed through his body. A deep and spacious wave of gloom.

He needed a new plan, and nothing short of a magic genie would probably work. Something that included three wishes and a beautiful woman to serve him like on that old
TV show. Even better, he hoped the man might come to his senses and grant him some degree of clemency.

Instead, the motherfucker drew a third pill from the bottle, jammed it down his throat, and said, “Hope you’re hungry, you piece of shit.”

LENA glanced at the chopper on the pad as she walked from her car to the beige-colored building. Her early-morning drive over to the Records Retention Center at Piper Tech had been filled with apprehension. This was where the case files ended up when the trail went cold. This was where the files were stored when a case slipped through the cracks and no one had the time to care anymore.

This was the place where she would find her brother’s murder book.

She’d never had the courage to look at it before. Never wanted that much detail. Never wanted to remember her brother by the files inside a three-ring binder. But Holt’s death changed everything. That feeling in her gut that wouldn’t go away.

She’d spent most of last night on the phone with Novak. Together they estimated that the list of people who knew Romeo’s MO wasn’t as short as they first thought. Everyone who attended the Teresa Lopez and Nikki Brant crime scenes would have to be included, along with two FBI profilers, anyone and everyone who processed evidence in the labs, the coroner’s office, every detective in RHD, and most of the department’s administrative staff. While the keys to the case had never been made public, they weren’t exactly private either.

She swung the door open, collecting herself as she stepped up to the counter. An old black woman wearing a light blue smock and thick bifocals looked up from her cart
halfway down the center aisle. The stacks were long and deep. And it was quiet here. As still as any other morgue.

After placing a manila folder in a box, the old woman turned back to her and flashed an odd smile as if maybe she were a mirage. Lena pulled her badge from her belt and found the case number in her notebook. The woman started forward.

“How can I help you, young lady?”

“I need to pull a case, ma’am.”

“Why didn’t you just call?”

“No time,” Lena said. “And I was in the neighborhood.”

The woman gave her another look, then climbed onto her stool before the computer. In spite of its short distance from Parker Center, not many investigators made the drive over to Piper Tech. Usually the case number was phoned in and the files were delivered by messenger right to your desk on the floor. Something Lena had discussed with Novak and knew she couldn’t afford.

The woman picked up Lena’s badge and examined it carefully, her face dusted with curiosity and suspicion. If she had antennae, they were up.

“You’re a detective.”

“That’s right.”

Lena slid her pad across the counter and watched the woman punch the case number into the computer. After a moment, the old woman turned from the screen as if she finally understood.

“You have the same last name,” she said gently.

Lena thought she’d prepared herself for this moment. When she couldn’t speak, she nodded.

“I know exactly where this is, Detective Gamble. I’ll only be a moment.”

“Thanks.”

She watched the clerk vanish into the stacks, then turned away. She heard the rotors from that chopper squeal, then beat the air as they wound up. Listening to the bird take off seemed a whole lot better than what she’d heard on the radio just ten minutes ago.

The Holt murder-suicide had sprung to life, including the name the department was using to identify the serial killer. But her brother’s murder also made the story. A brief recap, along with the irony that both musicians were dead and David Gamble’s sister was one of four detectives working the case. Unfortunately, the Romeo investigation was already taking needless criticism as well. A professor from the drama department at a local college had stepped forward, attacking them for debasing a character and a play by William Shakespeare. In a shrill voice filled with vibrato the man grabbed his moment at the mike, demanding that the new chief change the name or else.

Or else what?

It had become another circus—the kind only L.A. could stuff inside the tent—and she wondered how the brass would handle damage control.

She turned back to the counter and saw the woman clutching the murder book.

Without hesitating, Lena drew her pen from her pocket and reached for the checkout card. She found the first blank line, then stopped as her eyes drifted upward.

Stan Rhodes had checked out the murder book one week after she’d made the jump from Hollywood to RHD. According to the checkout card, he kept the files for a week before returning them. Her eyes rose up the list to the next name. It was Rhodes again. When she checked the date, she realized that it was only three days after the detectives assigned to the case had finally given up and sent the files off to storage.

His reasoning could have been harmless enough. She had to admit that Rhodes might have a credible explanation for why he wanted to look at her brother’s murder book. His reasons could have been professional, she told herself, or even personal. After all, they once shared something together. If the timing had been better, they might have shared a lot more.

But what troubled her was his signature. It was on the card, which meant that he’d pulled the file on the q.t. just as she was doing. Not once, but twice.

She felt a twinge light up between her shoulder blades.
Shaking it off, she signed the card and pushed it across the counter. When the old woman passed over the three-ring binder, she pulled it into her chest and walked out. Before the door slammed shut, she heard the words “God bless you” follow her into the lot and burn up in the sunlight.

LENA ENTERED THE
Blackbird, ordered an extralarge cup of the house blend, and looked about the dimly lit café. In spite of the crowd, she spotted an empty table by the far window and cut across the room.

It was quiet here. Somehow comforting. Although the building had once been an auto repair garage, the place now had the look and feel of a community reading room. The corrugated-aluminum ceiling was pitched and remained unfinished, the only architectural detail to survive the renovation. The brick walls were lined with books and art donated by patrons. The only music she ever heard in the café was classical, which seemed to distinguish it from every other commercial space in the city.

She took a sip of coffee and pulled the murder book out of her briefcase, her eyes flicking over her brother’s name on the label. She spent a few minutes staring at the binder, measuring its size and weight in her hands. When she noticed her fingers trembling, she took a deep breath and opened the book.

It had been a takeaway case from the very beginning. Once David was identified as both a musician and the brother of an LAPD officer, the investigation bounced from Hollywood Division to RHD. Two detectives were assigned to the case, Barry Martin and Joe Drabyak. Lena looked at their names listed on the preprinted table of contents. She could remember their faces, the way they treated her during their numerous interviews, the kindness they bestowed. Both retired before her transfer. Both left town once the case went to Piper Tech and hit the black hole.

The murder book was divided into twenty-six sections, offering a complete picture of the investigation in chronological order. Lena found the Death Investigation Report and started reading. A description of her brother was listed,
along with the location of the crime on Vista Del Mar and their home address in Hollywood Hills. Lena’s name had been filled in as
NEAREST RELATIVE
. Above her name three boxes were checked, indicating that she’d discovered the victim, reported the death, and identified the body. Confirmation that she had been notified of her brother’s death as next of kin was checked in a fourth box off to the side.

She shrugged at the bureaucratic redundancy. As she combed through the Chronological Record, it seemed clear that both Martin and Drabyak were approaching the investigation as a robbery gone bad. That David had driven from the club to Vista Del Mar to buy drugs, even though Lena had told them that he no longer used anything but alcohol.

A slug had been cut out of the passenger seat. Gunshot residue was found on the driver’s side mirror, the upper left section of the steering wheel, and the palm of David’s left hand. Based on the bullet’s trajectory and GSR evidence, the shooter had to be standing within one foot of the car. Both Martin and Drabyak seemed to agree that the victim was aware of the threat. Both detectives believed that David was backpedaling his way into the passenger seat when the single shot was fired at point-blank range.

Lena played the scene out in her head. Her brother trapped in the space of a front seat, making a futile attempt to block the shot with his hand. She looked out the window for a moment, wondering if she could really handle this. Pushing her coffee aside, she straightened the book on her lap and dug in.

From the number of entries in the Chronological Record, she could tell that Martin and Drabyak had worked the case hard. Even though their first impressions seemed to be pushing them toward a street killing, they pushed back and managed to keep an open mind. And then two days after the murder, they interviewed Zelda Clemens. Lena noticed that one of the detectives had drawn a circle around her name and underlined it twice. When the results from the autopsy came in, the investigation shifted into another gear.

Lena found Section 19, the Coroner’s Report, carefully
avoiding the plastic covers beneath the medical examiner’s findings because she knew they contained photos from the autopsy. It had been the ME who confirmed the investigators’ suspicions that another theory was more than possible. It was his examination of her brother’s corpse that transformed everyone’s first impression of the crime scene and turned it into something else.

While no illegal drugs were found in David’s system, his blood-alcohol level was so high that the ME openly wondered how he managed to operate the car. At five times the legal limit, David Gamble would have had no need and would most likely have been incapable of buying or ingesting anything more. And there was evidence that he had sex shortly before his death. Swabs taken from her brother’s body indicated that he had both vaginal and anal sex with a woman before he was murdered.