In My Dark Dreams (51 page)

Some businesses are still open, mostly fast-food places and bars. Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, McDonald’s—all on the same block. Across the street from them, a KFC. The idea of digesting any of that carbo-loaded gunk makes me nauseated, and I take another swallow of water to calm my stomach.

Farther up, a few blocks before the freeway entrance, there is an all-night ARCO AM/PM Mini-Market. Up ahead of me, I see Salazar pull in. He parks near the front, gets out of his car, takes a quick look around, and goes into the store.

I drive past and turn onto the first side street, where I make a U-turn and park at the curb. From this vantage point I will be able to see Salazar’s truck as he passes by, so I can take up my pursuit again. He didn’t pull up to a gasoline pump, so he must be buying something inside. Soda, a snack. He doesn’t smoke, and if he is going where I think he’s going, he won’t be drinking alcohol, either.

A minute passes. Two. My fear quotient is spiking. I know this is crazy, but I have to do this, because no one else can, or will. I blink to clear my vision as I stare out the front window. Since I drove by the station without stopping, I didn’t notice if there were other customers inside. There could be a line at the cash register. Those stores only have one clerk on duty at this time of night.

The tapping at my side window is light, a mere knuckle rap, but I almost hit the roof, I jump so violently. My scream is from out of
The Twilight Zone.

Roberto Salazar is standing outside my car. I never saw him coming, that’s how stealthily he can move. His eyes are black coals, boring holes into me. I can feel seething rage coming off him, like a bolt of lightning shooting across the sky.

My hand snakes into my purse. I grip my gun and thumb the safety off. If he makes a move to open my door, I’ll blow his head off.

We stare at each other in silence for a moment. Then, emboldened by knowing I have the power to protect myself, I crack the window an inch.

“What do you want?” I snarl at him. I can’t show him that I’m scared out of my mind.

He reaches into the paper bag he’s holding and takes out a package. “You must be hungry, out so late at night, and so far from your home. Do you want some beef jerky?”

He takes a piece of meat out of the package and shoves it toward my face. It looks as if it has been cut from a cadaver. I almost puke, my stomach is churning so hard.

“You should not be here,” he says. His voice is low and reedy, like a cold wind blowing through tall grass. “You should be home, where you belong. Your involvement with me is in the past, Mrs. Thompson. I am finished with you now. And you are finished with me.”

I start to shake. My finger tightens on the trigger of my gun.

“You are a mother now,” he says in a voice that chills me to the bone. “You want your daughter to grow up to be a pretty woman. Like you are.” In a whisper, he says, “I know where you live, Mrs. Thompson.”

He steps back. “We are finished with each other,” he warns me. “Completely. Do not forget that again.”

He turns on his heel and walks away.

I watch him retreat until I am sure he isn’t coming back. Then I start the car and drive away as fast as I can. I’m shaking so uncontrollably that I can barely keep the car from running off the road.

I can take blast-furnace heat. I’ve been a survivor my entire life. But when Salazar threatened my child, he crossed the line. Until tonight, I was not sure what I was going to do about him. Now, I am.

The street where Salazar’s church is located is quiet as a tomb. No lights on, no pedestrians. I park as close to the church as I can and get out of my car. My gun is in my pocket. It feels heavy and comforting.

One thing I’ve learned in my years of defending hundreds of petty criminals: 90 percent of the time, breaking and entering is a piece of cake, especially into older buildings that don’t have many valuables in them. A pawnshop or jewelry store will be well fortified, including a good alarm system, but the average single residence can be a bird’s nest on the ground. From what I saw the last time I was here, the only thing of value in this church is the pulpit, and no one is going to steal that, there’s no aftermarket for it. If the building is old, and the lock that originally came with it hasn’t been upgraded, you can sometimes open it with the old credit-card-in-the-doorjamb trick. And often in a place like this, where many people come and go, they’ll hide a key, usually in an obvious place. Under a flower pot, over the door frame, even under the door mat.

I walk to the door and look around. No one is in sight. Before I take out a credit card or start to look for the hidden key, I turn the doorknob to check how strong the resistance is.

There is no resistance. The door isn’t locked.

I slither inside and shut the door behind me. I take a small flashlight out of my purse and shine it along the aisle, keeping it low, so I don’t attract attention from the street. I’m only going to be here a very short time.

It costs a quarter to drop a dime these days. I call LAPD Robbery-Homicide from a pay phone in Mar Vista and leave a message for Lieutenant Luis Cordova. I repeat it twice, and hang up when the person who took the call asks for my name.

Forty minutes later, I am home. I check my street to make sure Salazar’s truck isn’t parked there, but I don’t see it. Still, I have my hand on my gun when I unlock my door, which has a decent but not great lock on it, and enter cautiously.

Kathy is sleeping on the couch. I go into my room, and look into the baby’s crib. She is snoring blissfully. Until this moment, I didn’t realize how unbelievably scared I was. I can barely stand, my legs are trembling so badly.

Tomorrow, I will call a locksmith and have new locks installed.

I
HAVE COME TO MY
office to clean out my desk and say goodbye. My friends are sad to see me go, but they understand why I’m leaving. If you can’t give 100 percent all the time, you shouldn’t be here. I can’t do that anymore, so I’m bailing out.

My landing will be as soft as a featherbed. Beginning next month, I will be an associate partner at Bixby, Stern, and Myers, one of the top civil litigation firms in the city. My new office is large, especially compared to what I’m used to. I won’t be sharing it. I have my own secretary, and two paralegals as needed. There are other perks as well, including in-house child care. I will bring my baby with me in the morning and take her home with me at night, and feed and play with her when I can grab a moment.

My starting salary is $350,000 a year, but that is a stepping-stone. In a few years I will become a full partner, and my income will triple, or better. I will buy my own house in Rustic Canyon, or anywhere I want.

Amanda set the deal up for me, of course. Arnold Stern has been her personal attorney for decades. Not that the firm isn’t thrilled to have me on board—I made a nice reputation for myself in the first Salazar trial. I will do class actions, product liability, personal injury. Work that doesn’t make headlines, but brings in big bucks.

Everyone in my old office is glad to see me, and they are happy for my future. But the real enthusiasm is for my baby. She is the star attraction. Oohs and aahs all around. She is dressed in a hand-stitched lace baby smock her godmother imported from a Paris baby boutique. The women can’t keep from touching her, smelling her, they want to eat her up, she’s so adorable. She basks in their adulation like the true princess she is.

The main topic of conversation, of course, is Roberto Salazar’s arrest for the murder of the second Full Moon victim. The arrest was shown again and again on television: The police, with Lieutenant Cordova in the lead, taking him out of his house, handcuffed. Salazar being brought into the jail. Mug shots. Articles of indictment. The whole nine yards.

The police did it right this time. When they went to Salazar’s church to search for the second pair of undergarments (acting on the tip of an anonymous informant), they had a police video team with them. The entire scene is on tape, so there is no question of any evidence being planted. The tape shows the police entering the church, marching down the aisle to the pulpit. Cordova puts on a pair of latex gloves and pries the cross off the wall, the one that has the crown of thorns Christ on it. He reaches behind the back of the cross and pulls out the damning evidence from where it was stuffed behind the wooden cross.

Later, when he is interviewed, Cordova admits that the police had searched the church after they found the first set of panties in Salazar’s truck, but hadn’t found this second pair. There had been some squeamishness about tampering with a religious artifact. Luckily, there have been no other victims since Salazar was released on bail, but the authorities are sure it was only a matter of time before he would try again.

The police do not know who the anonymous tipster was. Maybe the same person who called in the first one. They may never know.

I have the whole dog and pony show on TiVo—the police assault on the church, Salazar’s arrest, the preening politicians practically breaking their arms as they pat themselves on the back. I have replayed it several times. A fascinating piece of Los Angeles history that I was a small part of.

Joe and I go up to his office to say our private good-byes. Only officially, because we plan to continue to be friends outside the office. But as our lives are going to be separate and different now, I don’t know if we’ll really keep up with each other. I hope we do. He was a good teacher, a good supporter.

Joe pops the ubiquitous Diet Coke and sprawls out in his desk chair. “Abby Lench has his work cut out for him now,” he says. He has a Santa Claus twinkle in his eye.

“Not my problem,” I respond.

“Nor mine.” He drinks his Coke, spilling some down his shirtfront. “You know the one thing I’ve been wondering?” he ponders. “Both the first time, and this one?”

I wait for him to tell me the rest of what he’s wondering about.

“Who that anonymous informant is. Both times that was what did the trick.”

I smile. “Maybe it was the real killer.”

Joe gets a real belly laugh out of that. “Yeah, right.”

He gives me a good-bye hug and kisses the baby on the top of her head. “Take care,” he says. He walks me to the door. “We were a good team. You earned your colors, Jessica.”

From Joe, that is the highest possible praise. “We’ll be in touch,” I promise him.

“We’d better be.”

The elevator is empty as I ride down to the lobby from our floor. I don’t know when I’ll be in this building again. Maybe never.

The car stops on twelve. Lieutenant Luis Cordova enters. He is startled, seeing me. Then, when he realizes what the bundle in my arms actually is, he breaks into a smile.

The doors close. We’re alone. I feel the familiar swoosh in my stomach as we begin our descent.

Cordova bends over and stares into Amanda’s face. She stares back at him. A tiny hand reaches out and grabs his nose.

“I heard you had her,” he says, after he gently disengages his honker from her surprisingly strong grip. “Congratulations. She’s a doll. Like her mother.”

I actually blush. “Thanks.” I hesitate. “About the trial …”

He waves off what he knows I am going to say. That I almost outright accused him of planting evidence.

“I didn’t take any of that personally. You had a job to do. And I screwed up, so I deserved to get called out.” He shrugs philosophically. “Comes with the territory.”

That’s a relief. I like this man, and deep down, I trust him. “You won’t have to deal with any ambiguity this time around,” I pronounce. “I saw the tape of the search.”

“Yes, we bent over backward to make sure we did everything by the book,” he replies with satisfaction. “So in a sense, I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

We reach the lobby. The doors open. “I hear you quit,” he says. “Going into the civilian world.”

“Yep, I did. Elvis is leaving the building.”

He offers his hand. Mine is buried in his as we shake. “Have you found out who the anonymous tipster was?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “We don’t know.” He looks me in the eye. “Either time.”

“Well,” I tell him, “good luck.”

“And you.”

He turns and disappears into the throng. As I watch him go, thinking there is a good chance I will never see him again, I still have that nagging feeling, like a tickle in the back of your throat you can’t cough away: who made that first anonymous phone call? The one without which Salazar would never have been arrested.

I have some distance from it all now, so I can examine my feelings more objectively than when I was in the cauldron. Anyway you look at that, it doesn’t make sense. Mexican gardeners are a dime a dozen anywhere in Los Angeles. There would have been absolutely no reason for anyone to be suspicious of him.

Unless you wanted to be. Unless you knew there was a cloud hanging over him because of his previous arrest. Unless you knew he had been in the immediate vicinity of one of the earlier murders. Cordova and his fellow detectives had found out about the arrest for the stolen television sets within minutes of calling in Salazar’s information, which means any cop, including them, could have known about that not only then, but earlier.

If I were a conspiracy nut and was also paranoid about cops, I could easily put together a case against Cordova and the other members of the task force, for all of the reasons I have been contemplating the past several months. It would be a good case. But I’m not a nut, and I don’t want to drive myself crazy. I leave that stuff to the Oliver Stones of the world. I’m out of it now. That is in the past. My future is in my arms.

But still. Who made that first phone call?

T
HE BABY IS SIX
months old today, so her godmother is throwing a party in her garden. Baby shower/half-year birthday. A few of Amanda’s friends and some new ones of mine I’ve met at the gym, who have brought their own babies. Even though my new friends are by any normal standards affluent, they are knocked out by the casual displays of wealth that come with an Amanda Burgess affair. Catered baby food from one of the best and most expensive restaurants in Santa Monica. Catered adult food from the same restaurant. For entertainment there is a juggler, two clowns, an antique merry-go-round, a pony with trainer. An organ grinder with a monkey wearing a fez.