City of Fire (36 page)

She remembered buying that pack of cigarettes yesterday and found them on the dash. With Rhodes still in mind, she lit one and wondered if self-destruction was contagious. She had followed him down to Franklin, then lost his car in traffic when he made a right on Gower. She had been keeping her distance, twenty car lengths’ worth of insurance so that she wouldn’t be seen. Had she anticipated the volume of
cars on the road tonight, she would have played it tighter. Still, she confirmed that he’d lied to her. The market was two blocks up Franklin in the other direction. Rhodes was on his way to meet someone.

She checked her watch as she drew smoke into her lungs. Novak was at least a half hour off, maybe more. Switching the flashlight on, she pushed the crime scene tape out of her way and started down the driveway on her own.

She wanted a look at the house first. All the way around. Novak had told her over the phone that the point of entry hadn’t been an unlocked front door. Instead, the intruder broke a window around back and entered from the basement. She found a gravel path at the end of the drive, following it down a series of steps until she reached the backyard. Panning the light across the perimeter, she spotted the stable and horse trails leading into the hills. One trail caught her interest, and she moved deeper into the yard for a better view. As she took another drag on the cigarette, she panned her flashlight up the hill and watched the beam crisscross in the sky with the headlights from a passing car. It struck her that this wasn’t a horse trail, but a footpath leading to Mulholland Drive. If the intruder hadn’t parked out front, this was a viable entrance to the property, something she would never have noticed if not for the darkness and a passing car.

She dropped her cigarette in the wet grass and gave it a tap with her boot. The breeze was steadier now and she could hear it wisping through the tall grass behind her.

She thought about the owner, her brother’s best friend, and took in the breadth of what was supposed to be his new home. The windows were larger in the back, the ivy covering the whitewashed walls more carefully trimmed, no doubt because of the view. To the left at the top of the steps was a stone terrace with French doors opening to the living room. To the right, an enclosed porch that ran the length of the house. Tilting the beam of light beneath the deck, she located the basement door.

This was the point of entry. The weak link. She stepped beneath the porch, noting the gardening supplies and wood
stacked beside a shed. Moving closer, she panned the light over the door and examined the damage. Three panes of glass remained intact, while the fourth was crudely broken away with what Novak believed had been a log from the woodpile.

She gazed through the broken window. Dim light could be seen cascading down the basement steps, and she guessed that one of the crime scene techs had left a lamp on somewhere upstairs. She glanced at the moving cartons littering the floor by the furnace, then turned back to the door and zeroed in on the outdated lock. When she rattled the doorknob, she felt the loose fit and raised the flashlight. Above the doorframe was a foot-long crack. And the damage wasn’t limited to the mortar. Several stones were split in two. It looked as if the jamb had shifted more than a half inch away from the door. Lena knew that she was looking at damage from the Northridge earthquake. Even more, she’d found another loose end in the logic of the case.

She grabbed the doorknob and gave it a hard push. Then tried again, thrusting with her hip. As the lock gave way and the door popped open, she considered the possibilities.

The intruder’s first instinct would have been to try the door. Just as obvious, anyone with any strength could have forced the door open as easily as she had. From what they knew about Romeo, he was both cunning and strong. And there was a risk to breaking the glass. The sound it would make and the possible injury it might cause.

As she mulled it over, she realized that her revelation cut both ways. Romeo probably wouldn’t have entered the house this way. But no one carrying a badge would have punched out the window either.

Filing it away for later, she stepped around the moving cartons and headed upstairs. When she reached the kitchen, she saw a small lamp burning on a table by the front door and switched on the overhead lights. It took a few moments for the crime scene to register in her mind. Novak and Rhodes must have unpacked every moving carton. When they were through, they repacked Holt’s things, but the result was chaos. A house
that was difficult to move around in and looked as if it had been turned.

The ice maker in the freezer clicked, then dumped a fresh set of cubes into the tray. Something about the sound made her feel uneasy. Almost as if a presence remained in the house. Pushing a stack of boxes aside, she cut a path toward the stairs and aimed her flashlight up to the second floor. The steps creaked under her weight. Cool air swept across her face as she reached the landing. She paused a moment, struck by that feeling again. That presence. Only this time it had more definition, and it felt as if she were being watched. She panned the flashlight down the hallway and gazed at the dark rooms at the very end. Lena had spent considerable time at crime scenes, on her own and at all hours of the night. As a homicide detective, experiencing a location and replaying the crime was part of the job. So why this feeling? Why now?

She turned away, the door to the murder room directly before her. Gutting it out, she entered the room, found the light switch on the wall, and flipped it. When nothing happened, she spotted a lamp by the bed and moved deeper into the room. The smell of rotting blood caught up with her, then lessened slightly as she finally got a light on and felt that draft of cool air again.

A window had been left open, perhaps because of the blood. She gazed at the roof outside, then closed the window and secured the lock.

She could feel it now. She could see it. Jane Doe’s body strung to the bedpost with the stocking. What was left of Tim Holt, slouched in the chair holding the gun.

She heard something downstairs and flinched. Moving to the door, she listened to the peppered silence for a moment, then took a deep breath and tried to relax. She had a job to do. Why this feeling now?

She turned away, her eyes drifting back to the chair. Something about it bothered her. Not the bloodstains on the fabric. It was the position of the chair. The idea that it faced the bed.

The doorbell rang and the thought slipped away. She heard Novak calling her name. Hurrying downstairs, she pushed her way past the cartons and opened the door.

“Find anything?” he asked.

“Thoughts,” she said. “Ideas.”

She led her partner up the steps into the murder room and pointed at the chair.

“I’m just thinking out loud, Hank. But the chair’s facing the bed.”

“So what?”

“If I was gonna blow myself away because I couldn’t deal with the guilt of being a murderer, I’m not sure I’d want Jane Doe’s corpse to be the last thing I ever saw. I would’ve turned the chair toward this window and looked at the view.”

“If Holt shot your brother and flamed out when he found Jane Doe, then I guess it’s possible he would’ve turned away before he jumped. You know I’ve had trouble calling this a suicide from day one, Lena.”

“Rhodes said he couldn’t let go of my brother’s murder. What if Holt was onto something? What if he got too close?”

“Anything’s possible,” Novak said.

The main wheel in her gut rotated slightly, then clicked so hard she could almost hear it. With every bone in her body, she knew why Holt had been trying to reach her. In an instant, she knew why he was dead. It came down to her internal compass. The main wheel. And whether she could trust it.

Holt found something, or walked into something. Either way, that was why he was trying to reach her. That was why he wanted to talk.

She turned back to Novak. The wear and tear on his face was more visible now.

“What’s wrong, Hank?”

“The semen sample we pulled off Jane Doe. Even if Romeo’s not good for it, I’ve got a feeling the science will be. I’m betting the DNA will match. Whoever did this put real time into it.”

His words hung there. In the murder room with the scent
of ripened blood wafting in the air. She was thinking about her brother. About Jane Doe and Tim Holt. She looked out the window at the hills tumbling into the basin. The lights to the City of Angels feeding into a not-so-distant ocean. Someone had the keys to the Romeo murders and was using them.

FELLOWS wriggled with excitement as he watched two sets of headlights roll by his car. After a beat, and then another, he started the Taurus and followed the last car up the hill.

He knew her name. Lena Gamble. He had read about her in the newspaper and even caught a glimpse of her on TV. But when she entered the murder house on Vista Road and he saw her in the flesh, it was like an epiphany.

He was standing in the dining room when she first stepped into the kitchen. Hiding in the shadows and angry at the intrusion until he laid eyes on her. He followed her through the house. Watching her. Smelling her. Mesmerized by the total package. The vision of it all.

He guessed that she had probably been a blonde as a child and liked the way her tangled light brown hair fell off her shoulders as an adult. Her sleepy eyes were as blue as a waterfall set against an early-morning sky. But it was her body that shook his being to the core. The way she took care of herself and the curves hidden behind her clothing that he could only see with his eyes closed.

She was driving a beat-up Honda Prelude. When she made a right on Mulholland, he slowed down some, taking extra care because the Crown Vic had turned left and they were the only two cars on the road now. Within a few minutes, he saw her make another right, heading down the hill to Franklin.

He thought about touching her. It had taken all his
strength and willpower
not
to touch her. He could still see her standing outside the bedroom door as he hid in the empty linen closet directly behind her. He could hear her breathing as he consumed the different scents of her body. He wanted to take her right there. On the floor of a murder house. In the darkness and ultrasilence where he could think and be himself. He could hear her moaning. He could hear her whispering in his ear.

Romeo. Romeo.

The best part was that she knew he was there. He was sure of it. She kept pointing her flashlight down the hall. Staring into the gloom with a certain reach in her eyes. He could see her mind going. She knew he was there but couldn’t find him in the shadows. Couldn’t see him gliding from room to room. All she had was an impression of him. A feeling that they were alone together, and for the first time, very close.

Fellows suddenly became aware of his erection pressing against the seat belt. A chill curdling between his shoulder blades just before his entire body flushed with heat. He smiled at the warm feeling, his eyes locked on that car.

The Prelude crossed beneath the 101 Freeway and was making a left on Gower, heading back up into the hills.

“Heading home,” he whispered. “The night’s not over yet.”

The climb steepened as they passed a stop sign. When her car vanished around the first bend, he switched his headlights off and rolled out a hundred yards before turning them back on. It was a technique he used when following someone in the hills. Something he’d learned from Mick Finn, who told him one night that it was all about perception. Not his perception, but what was going on in the mind of the person he was following. Every time he switched his headlights off, he vanished and was perceived as a car that had turned off the road. Every time he switched them on again, he was seen as a different car rounding the bend. A new car. Someone harmlessly using the same road.

Fellows knew that it worked when Lena Gamble pulled into her driveway and, before he passed the house, climbed out of her Prelude and headed for the front door.

He felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins and tightened his grip on the wheel. Continuing up the road to the next house, he found a place to park and doubled back on foot. Something was in the air tonight, a certain brand of electricity he couldn’t quite define. All he knew was that the wind beating against his chest seemed unable to cool him down.

At the very least he needed another visual fix. More time to look at her, study her, think about what it would be like when they were together. Contemplate a world in which Harriet Wilson didn’t reject him, but instead, he left Harriet for another woman. This woman. The one with the tangled hair.

He legged it around the bluff and started down the drive. As he picked out a window, he thought he might be in heaven. It was a bedroom window. A bedroom on the first floor that opened to the living room. He could see her pouring a glass of wine and crossing the room to her CD player. He watched as she sat down on the couch and peeled off her boots. In spite of the wind, he could hear the music passing through the house. It was a saxophone.

He listened for a moment, devouring the image before him as the saxophone wobbled and swayed. And then he suddenly realized that the woman he was watching, the vision he’d followed home, was in some kind of pain. He could see it in her smoky eyes. The way her lips were parted. The frequent sips of wine. She was listening to the music, and something about something hurt. When the song ended, the hurt didn’t go away but seemed to get worse.