City of Fire (40 page)

“I thought rock and rollers lived the life we mortals only dreamed about,” he said. “I thought they got their pick of women. All they ever had to do was snap their fingers and say you’re the one.”

The tone of his voice seemed strange. Up and down, light and dark—all at the same time. She didn’t know him well enough to get a read on where he was going.

“Slow down, Art,” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“Tim Holt. I’ve read the stories. I was a fan, remember. I always thought he got more women in a week than I’d ever see in a lifetime.”

She glanced at the time. Madina called her at 7:00 a.m. to talk about what?

“You’re losing me,” she said. “What’s this got to do with the autopsy?”

“It’s not Tim Holt. It’s the work I did on Molly McKenna.”

“Who’s McKenna?”

“Jane Doe. The body I examined after you and Novak left.”

A beat skidded by, and Lena glanced out the window. The gardeners were carrying the umbrella toward the driveway. When they vanished around the corner, her view turned inward. She was out of the loop. Jane Doe had been identified and no one called.

“When did they make the ID, Art?” Her voice had been steady. Rock steady.

“I don’t know. But they called me last night.”

“Who?”

“Stan Rhodes.”

That pain in her stomach was back. A searing pain that lasted for about ten seconds before easing up.

Rhodes. She should have expected it.

“So what’s this stuff about dreams and rock and roll?” she said.

Madina cleared his throat. “Molly McKenna was a virgin, Lena.”

It hung there. Another loose end that didn’t make any sense. Another black hole in a case shot through with black holes.

“I thought she was found in Holt’s bed,” Madina went on. “That she was supposed to be waiting for him to come home. That he found her and loved her and blew himself away when he saw what Romeo did. Wasn’t that your working theory? Romeo likes to wait and likes to watch, and when he saw Holt blow himself away, he got everything he ever wanted?”

“That’s what Novak and I believe happened to Nikki Brant and Teresa Lopez,” she said in an even voice. “Romeo likes to watch the husband’s response.”

“But not with Holt and not with McKenna. I see where you and Novak are going with this. And I heard that press conference yesterday on the radio. It’s pretty clear the department’s headed in another direction. But this is bullshit, Lena. Molly McKenna was a virgin. She was seventeen years old and still lived at home with her parents. What the department’s saying doesn’t make any sense if McKenna had never been fucked. It sounds like spin. Like bullshit.”

Lena didn’t know Madina well, but she could tell by now that he was wrestling with the same bag of loose ends she was. There was no way that Holt would commit suicide over a woman he wasn’t involved with. No one would.

“Who have you talked to?” she asked.

“About McKenna? Nobody. It’s your case. I’m calling to give you my report. I know it’s early, but I wanted the night to think things over.”

“What else did you find?”

“The knife wounds follow the same path we laid out with Nikki Brant. Almost a carbon copy. But here’s the difference, and it makes about as much sense as everything else. The knife had nothing to do with the cause of death. McKenna was stabbed
after
she died, not before. I thought Romeo liked a bloody crime scene.”

“He does. If he’s going for the husband’s response, he needs blood to get the effect. Yesterday you showed us the X-ray and said her neck was broken.”

“Her neck was snapped, but I was wrong. It was a brain injury from a skull fracture that killed her. I found blood in her ears. When we folded her scalp back, her skull looked like a cracked eggshell. The brain contusion is textbook.”

“So it was fast.”

“So fast her blood didn’t have time to clot. The doer grabbed her by the forehead and smashed the back of her skull in. The force was so explosive, he broke her neck along the way.”

“Would he have known she was dead before he stabbed her?”

“That’s the key question, isn’t it?” he said. “If he’s a copycat
and didn’t want to deal with a lot of blood. If he’s not Romeo and didn’t want to get his hands dirty. He’d kill her to stop her heart, then use the knife to make it look right.”

“What do you think, Art?”

“Unless he was blind, he knew she was dead. Her neck would no longer be able to support the weight of her head. It would have been hanging off to the side. Maybe that’s why he tied it to the bedpost with the stocking.”

Lena paused a moment, thinking about the DNA match. The hard science that was in the way. “What about the semen?”

“A lot of these guys jerk off on their victims, Lena. Sometimes they can’t even get it together to do that.”

“But that’s not Romeo. He’s more than able.”

“And that’s why I’m having so much trouble signing off on these reports. I can’t explain why the semen’s there or why it matches Romeo. All I know is that McKenna died a virgin. At least on paper she was a virgin.”

“What do you mean, on paper?”

“I don’t know, what do kids call it? Friends with benefits? It’s irrelevant to the case. McKenna wasn’t raped, that’s all that matters. No penetration occurred. And I’ve been thinking about that bruise on Holt’s chest.”

“What about it?”

“I think it could have been left by a Taser. It’s possible, Lena. That would explain why he didn’t fight back.”

“When are you sending over the report?”

“Rhodes said you wanted it first thing this morning.”

She grimaced. “What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been tossing it back and forth all night.”

“Any chance you could slow things down and spend the day thinking it over?”

He didn’t say anything right away. She knew that if her request got back to Barrera, what was already boiling might spill over the top.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” he said. “I’m not sure this can wait until Monday.”

“It probably can’t, but this case has strings attached. A lot of issues. Do what you’ve gotta do, Art. Do what you think’s right. That’s all I can ask.”

“I appreciate that. You need anything more from me right now?”

“Just McKenna’s address.”

“It’s here in the file.”

She moved to the table by the window. After jotting the address down, she thanked Madina and hung up. It was 7:15 a.m., and Madina would have to make the decision on his own. She knew that it wouldn’t be easy. While the physical evidence pointed one way, their interpretation of that evidence and common sense pointed in another. She turned to the window as she thought it over. The light raking the pool seemed unusually orange. She stepped outside and looked toward the horizon. The sun had risen over the city but lost its way in the plume of smoke. The entire basin was cast in a vivid red light that flickered and glowed all the way to the ocean.

She checked the yard, taking in the debris and damaged roof. She knew whom to call but would wait until she got in the car. Her eyes wandered back to the pool and up the porch steps. When she glanced at the chaise longue, her heart skipped a beat and everything skidded to a stop.

The cushion was wrinkled. Several towels were rolled up in a ball and tossed behind a planter on the deck. She took a step closer—the chill of her discovery prickling between her shoulder blades and working through her scalp.

Someone had been here. Slept here. Spent the night on her porch.

SHE made the turn off Fourteenth Street in Santa Monica, spotted McKenna’s house on the right, and pulled over. The driveway was empty. When she checked the front door, she looked behind the screen and saw that it was open.

Someone was home.

She unfastened her seat belt and took a quick look around. It was a modest, two-story house, probably built in the 1960s. A nondescript house with wooden siding that had been bleached out from the sun and appeared run-down. A house people would be pointing at and staring at when the identity of Jane Doe was released to the press.

It was eight-thirty and her cell phone began ringing.

She had made good time and hadn’t become fixated or overly distracted by her discovery that someone had spent the night on her porch. Instead, she made her call and arranged to have her roof tarped until the winds died down and repairs could begin. She went over her list of loose ends, hoping that most of her questions about the Holt crime scene would be answered in the next hour.

She checked the LCD, saw Novak’s name, and opened the phone.

“They ID’d Jane Doe,” he said.

Getting a read on her partner was easy. Novak was pissed off.

“The fuckers made the ID and didn’t say anything,” he shouted. “It’s our case.”

“I know,” she said, glancing at the house. “But I can’t talk right now.”

“How’d you find out? Where are you?”

“Madina called me about an hour ago and said he got the word last night. I’m parked outside the McKennas’ house.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

“Because I want to verify something first. I’ll be in by ten. We’ll talk then.”

“Rhodes hasn’t shown up yet, but I’m waiting for the guy.”

“It might be better to let it go, Hank. Let me talk to these people first.”

She closed her phone, clipping it to her belt as she got out of the car and walked to the front door. A radio was on, and she could hear music filtering down the hallway from the kitchen. When she knocked on the door, the music stopped.

“Who’s there?”

It had been a male voice. A boy’s voice. Someone startled by the knock on the door. Lena peered through the screen but didn’t see anyone. Just a piece of the living room and the foyer leading to the kitchen.

“I’m a detective. I’d like to talk to you.”

She heard the sound of a chair moving and watched as a fifteen-year-old boy appeared from the other side of the kitchen counter. He stared back at her and seemed hesitant to approach the door. His hair was dark brown and almost shoulder-length. He looked pale and thin and wore a black T-shirt and black jeans without socks or shoes.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Are your parents around?”

“No. They’re at the funeral home.”

“I know it’s hard, but would you mind if I came in?”

He didn’t answer. In spite of the distance, she could see his eyes rocking back and forth. She knew that he had a reason to be upset. Even devastated. But why did he look so nervous?

He turned away from her, glancing at his bare feet as he thought something over. Then he made a sudden move for the back door and bolted outside.

Lena ripped the screen door open, legging it through the
house and getting a quick read of the kitchen on her way out. Nothing was on the table except for a bowl of cereal. Nothing visible seemed worth hiding.

She spotted the kid running through a hedgerow, lowered her head, and burst through the bushes to the other side. It was a small park with no one around. Sprinting forward, she could hear the boy’s labored breathing. As she closed in on him and made a grab for his T-shirt, she heard him yelp and squeal and realized that he was crying.

She tackled him to the ground, rolling him on his back and holding him down with her body. The boy’s eyes widened, reeling off her face. She sensed recognition in his eyes but didn’t understand it.

“Please go away,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Leave me alone.”

“What is it? Why did you run away?”

“Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. Just leave me alone.”

Lena sat up, watching the boy avert his eyes and roll back over on his stomach. He was shaking. Trembling. Unable to stop.

“What’s your name?”

He paused a moment, but said it. “John McKenna.”

“Okay, John. I need to know why you looked at me and ran away.”

He shook his head, burying it in the grass.

“I need to know why you’re so frightened.”

The boy closed his eyes. “He said you’d come.”

“Who?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

“Okay, so a man said I’d come. I’m investigating your sister’s case. I’m supposed to come. I’m here to help you and your family. Why is that so frightening?”

The boy raised his head, then glanced at her and turned away.

“He was a cop, too.”

She paused a moment. The words had a certain weight about them. A certain reach.

“You mean a cop told you not to talk to me?”

He didn’t move and didn’t say anything, his hands still trembling.

Lena decided to let the thought ride for a while and looked at the reddish sunlight glistening in his dark hair. He was thin but strong. She had seen several skateboards leaning against the back of the house on her way out. It would probably have been a better race if he had a pair of shoes on.

“I can’t say that I know how you’re feeling because I don’t,” she said quietly. “But I lost my brother, John. It was a long time ago. I loved him a lot and never really got over it. I never stopped missing him. When it happened, I kept asking myself why it had to happen. Why him? Why me?”

His shaking lessened some and he raised his head enough that she could tell he was listening.