City of Fire (32 page)

An image surfaced. The theory both Martin and Drabyak wrestled with until the end. Zelda Clemens following the man who’d dumped her to that dead-end street in Hollywood. Seeing him with another woman in the front seat of his car. Drunken sex flowing into the aberrant before her very eyes. Waiting for it to end. Knocking on the window. Waving the gun. Watching her lover fucker squirm. Then pulling the trigger and fleeing into the night. David Gamble dies in Hollywood. Shot by a jealous bitch on the run.

Lena flipped to Section 12 and read Zelda’s statement. She remained angry even as Martin and Drabyak put the pressure on. But she didn’t break. “I got drunk that night,” she was quoted as saying. “I saw David leaving with that cunt. I went crazy and made a fool out of myself. I’m pretty good at that, but listen up, you losers—all I fucking did is go home.” When asked to describe the woman Gamble left the club with that night, she said, “All I caught was her ass. It was totally hot.”

SID couldn’t place Zelda Clemens at the crime scene. The detectives scoured the streets for two weeks but couldn’t turn up a single witness. When her apartment was searched, no weapon was found. Analysis of the dress she wore that night yielded nothing as well.

Lena skimmed through the Field Interview cards. Only a few people had seen David leave the club that night, and no one was able to describe the woman he left with. The investigation slowed down after that. When Lena checked the Follow-up Reports, she could tell from the tone of the entries that the case had slipped into a deep freeze. Even worse, if there was any connection to Tim Holt’s death, the link remained hidden.

She turned back to the Coroner’s Report for a look at the medical examiner’s final summary. She knew that her brother’s
CAUSE OF DEATH
was listed as excessive bleeding due to a gunshot wound. But as she read the report, she learned more than she wanted. The bullet broke up as it entered her brother’s chest, a fragment glancing off the aorta before exiting below the shoulder blade. Because David was young, the artery remained elastic. There was evidence of clotting. The wound had begun to heal, and at least one hour had passed before he finally died.

Lena tried to get a grip on herself. The injury in and of itself had not been fatal.

It is the opinion of this medical examiner that if the victim remained still and received medical attention in a timely manner, he would have survived.

She read that sentence three times. She closed her eyes and took the jolt in the dark.

No one had told her that he could have survived.

She turned to Section 17, her eyes zeroing in on the first photo taken at the crime scene. Her view as she held a flashlight over his body and prayed that he was only sleeping. She could see him lying there in a fetal position with his hands clasped between his thighs. The pool of blood on the passenger seat.

No one told her.

She tried to concentrate on her breathing. The pressure in her head as her eyes slid onto the ground. The rain drizzling down her cheeks.

The sadness was eternal. So deep, so oppressive, she thought it might ruin her.

“What are you doing here, Lena?”

She heard the voice, snapped out of it, and looked up. A man in a dark suit was standing before her, but it took a moment to place him.

“Your cell phone’s off, for Christ’s sake. The lieutenant wants to see you.”

It was Tito Sanchez, snapping his fingers at her.

“Not later,” he said quickly. “Now.”

She glanced at her coffee. She hadn’t touched it. When she slipped the murder book into her briefcase, she caught Sanchez staring at her brother’s name on the label. The recognition in his eyes.

“Hurry,” he said. “It’s important.”

She gave him a look as she got up. He seemed angry.

ENTERING the squad room at Parker Center felt something like a death march. Sanchez leading her down the aisle between the desks. Twenty detectives looking up from their work, nodding at her, then turning away a beat too quickly. The usual banter clipped short as if someone had hit the
MUTE
button.

“He’s in the captain’s office,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez stopped at his desk. Continuing down the aisle, Lena opened the glass door. Lieutenant Barrera was sitting on the far side of the conference table, flanked by Novak and Rhodes. Like the detectives on the floor, they were talking about something but stopped short when they saw her approach. She glanced at Novak. When their eyes met, she felt a ping and knew that she had at least one ally in the room.

“Have a seat,” Barrera said quietly.

“I’m okay standing,” she said.

His eyes moved to the murder book stuffed in her briefcase, then back to her face.

“That’s an order, Gamble. Take a seat.”

She pulled a chair out. There were no papers on the table. No files. Just three cups of coffee and a plastic bag containing a .38 revolver.

“I have news,” Barrera said. “Good news and bad news. Any way you look at it, I’m afraid it’s gonna be hard to take.”

She nodded, keeping her hands beneath the table because she knew that she was trembling. Barrera slid the gun across
the table. She saw Holt’s name written on the label but had already figured out where it came from. Rhodes had brought it back from Glendale.

“The firearms unit let us step to the head of the line,” Barrera said. “Rhodes spent the night working with an analyst. They test-fired the gun for verification. Then they went through the database comparing slugs. Two hours ago the results came in.”

Barrera paused a moment before continuing in a lower voice.

“They got a match, Lena. The gun Holt used to commit suicide with is the same gun used in your brother’s homicide. It looks like Holt shot your brother. It looks like there was a motive and he’s the one.”

She didn’t move. Something deep inside her told her to keep her mouth shut. Just take the bullshit. Wait until it’s over and get the hell out of the room.

“We found journals,” Rhodes said. “Holt wrote a lot of things down. I haven’t read everything yet, and at the time he didn’t come out and say he pulled the trigger. But he was extremely jealous and sounded confused. He was doing a lot of drugs. He loved your brother but he hated him, too. He bought the gun at a show in the Valley. We’ve got the receipt. Tim Holt owned that gun and murdered your brother. Five years later it caught up with him. He found Jane Doe’s body in his bed and couldn’t take it. That’s why he committed suicide.”

A moment passed. Lots of silence billowing into the room. Enough to choke on. She couldn’t look at Rhodes. His face had hardened up and she found it revolting. She could smell tobacco on his breath and caught the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. When she glanced at Novak, his skin was pale but he managed to shoot her another look.

“Not many people can live with themselves after committing a murder,” Barrera said. “Particularly when the victim’s someone, at least at one level, he called a friend. It was probably only a matter of time. Either he’d confess, and that’s why he called you. Or he was ready to jump off the cliff and take his secret with him.”

Rhodes cleared his throat. “Holt saw what Romeo did to the girl and it brought it all back.”

The silence returned, heavier this time.

Barrera reached across the table. “You’ve got your brother’s murder book. Better turn it over so we can get to work. We’ll close the case out once the lab verifies that Romeo killed the girl. In the meantime, there’s paperwork to do.”

Her briefcase was on her lap. She pulled the binder out and pushed it across the table, then watched Barrera pass it over to Rhodes.

“What if it’s not Romeo?” she said.

Barrera’s eyes flared up. “The keys are all there. Confirmation that the DNA belongs to Romeo is only a matter of time. You need to keep your head above water on this one, Gamble. You need to concentrate on identifying Jane Doe and finding Romeo. I realize it’s a heavy load. If you can’t handle it, everyone in this room would understand. If you can’t handle it, speak now so you can be replaced.”

At least he knew how to motivate people, she thought. Get underneath their skin and—

Someone gave the glass door a double tap and opened up. It was Sanchez.

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said. “North Hollywood just called. A Jeff Brown from Homicide. He’s looking for Lena.”

She turned in the chair. She’d never heard of the man. “What’s he want?”

“Charles Burell was murdered last night. He’s dead.”

THE case was radioactive now. Incinerating the atmosphere. Leaving nothing in its wake but shadows on the walls from the people burned in the hot-white flash.

Lena was so amped up her mouth had gone dry.

She ran across the street and followed Novak into the LAPD garage, a three-story structure that had the look and feel of an erector set that might fall down with the wave of a child’s hand. The Crown Vic was by the guard shack on the first floor, ass backward and ready to roll.

“I’ll drive,” he shouted.

They pulled through the entrance onto San Pedro and Novak gunned the engine.

“Any chance Holt could have done what they just said he did?”

Lena gave him a look.

“I didn’t think so,” he said. “I knew it was bullshit, but I had to ask.”

She rolled her window down and let the cool air beat against her face as she watched Parker Center fade into the background. Sanchez and Rhodes had stayed behind to do the unthinkable. Close a murder case out by pinning circumstantial evidence on an innocent man. A dead man who couldn’t speak out or fight back. As she chewed it over, the implications seemed better than clear. A key ingredient had turned and everything about it was rotten.

They hit the freeway at high speed. Novak switched on the running lights, found the left lane, and brought the car up to a
ragged ninety. Then he reached into the backseat, grabbed his briefcase, and dumped it on her lap.

“Open it,” he said. “I want you to see something.”

She flipped the latch and looked inside.

“The papers on top,” he said. “They’re not in a file.”

She pulled them out and quickly realized that it was a case summary from the sexual-assault database they’d divvied up two nights ago.

“Keep it,” he said. “And add it to your map. I think it’s number two on that list you’ve started.”

She checked the date. The rape had been reported last November.

“After we talked last night, I went through my share and finished up. This one popped out and floated to the top.”

The car was vibrating. Lena found it difficult to read but skimmed through the summary as best she could. The rape occurred in Santa Monica, well within Romeo’s comfort zone. And it hadn’t been an attempt. This time Romeo succeeded. The woman woke up in the middle of the night, thinking the man in her bed was her husband. By the time she remembered that he was out of town on a business trip, the doer was already on top of her. The shock and terror was enough to awaken her survival instincts. Instead of screaming, she went along with it and kept her eyes closed. She pretended to be groggy and waited until the intruder finished. When she heard him slip out the window, she called 911. Because she kept her eyes closed, because it happened in the dark, her only description of the assailant was that his chest seemed well-developed, she thought he might be bald, and his skin seemed extraordinarily smooth.

“What about DNA?” she said.

“He didn’t wear a condom. They’re trying to locate it.”

The case fit like a glove. Except for the aftermath, it was an exact copy of their theory on how Nikki Brant was killed. If the sexual assaults began last October and were occurring once a month, then they could account for every month except February. After February, something happened and the assaults escalated to murder.

Novak glanced at her from behind the wheel, raising his voice above the wind.

“You’re a good cop, Lena. Don’t let this bullshit knock you too far down. You’ve had some tough breaks. Getting the call on your brother’s murder five years ago was just about as bad as it gets. If I could change that night for you, I would. But you’ve gotta tough it out. You’ve got real talent. Your instincts are all there. You saw the pattern when no one else did. Thanks to you we have a feel for what the motherfucker looks like and where he lives.”