MOSAICS: A Thriller (30 page)

TWENTY-
NINE

____________

Tuesday, July 21

I sprang my eyes open and then closed them again. Every muscle in my body was sore. It wasn’t the Pain. Strangely, the Pain was quiet. I brought a hand to my face and rubbed my eyes. My vision spotted like burning camera film. Then shapes reemerged, one by one. An old dresser, the colorful painting of a red, naked woman lying languidly in the forest, the open door of a closet, a few shirts clinging to hangers, ties, pants, a chair, a plastic rack of shoes hanging at the back of the closet door. An open window, the smell of eucalypti softly drifting inside.

“It’s almost noon.” Diane’s voice came from far away, even though she was sitting on the bed, next to me.

“Noon, huh?” I drawled.
Will’s tongue came to my face, warm and moist.

Diane called him to her side and patted him.
“You slept through the morning.”

“
You stayed the whole time?”

She flashed me
a deliciously malicious leer. “I’ve been watching you. The doctor said to keep an eye on you.”

I groaned myself out of bed and sat on the edge. I needed a shower, a shave, clean clothes, and possibly a new head, one that didn’t hurt this much.

Diane pressed a cold finger against my temple. “Are you feeling any better?”

“I’m great,” I mumbled. “Stop spinning the ceiling, though. It’s making me dizzy.”

She smiled, kissed me, padded to the bathroom, came back with a bottle of Advil in her hand. Hell. In juvi you could bribe the guards into slipping you acid. A double sawbuck bought you a couple trips and the happiest five hours you could remember.

“Satish called,”
she said, handing me the medication.

“When?” I shook two Advil tablets out of the bottle and downed them.

“A couple of hours ago. He was running VIN numbers through the DMV database.”

Blood rushed to my head. “They got it? They got the vehicle, then? When, how?”

“He said the parked vehicle picked up by the FLIR was a Volvo and it matched your description. The VIN on the doorjamb was scratched off but they got the hidden one instead, and the plate turned out to be from a dump. They towed it early this morning.”

I stood up. The ceiling behaved and stayed put. My shoulders and neck ached, and I let them ache and I didn’t care. My heart thumped wildly. “What did you say about the plate?”

Diane shook her head. “Probably bought illegally from a car dump.”

“Fine. The VIN’s all we need.
Glad they got the hidden one.”

The news energized me. I got to my feet and headed to the bathroom.
I started undressing. “Where’s Satish now, at the Glass House? Can you call him and tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes?”

“Track, wait.” She leaned against the bathroom door, a ques
tion hanging from her eyes. “A Doctor Watanabe called.”

I started the water and let it run.

Watanabe
.

“Thanks,” I said,
stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain. Her scent melted in the hot water vapors. The door clicked closed. Rivulets streamed down my face, neck and shoulders.

They
found the hidden VIN.

The son of a bitch may be good wit
h computers, but he’s an idiot with cars.

When I got out of the bathroom, Diane was sitting on the bed, the silent question still hanging from her lips. I tried to ignore it but it kept following me around as I went through hangers looking for shirt and pants.

“Don’t you want to know why your doctor called?”

“He heard on the new
s that I’d totaled my car and wanted to make sure I didn’t total my neck as well.”

I tossed a set of clothes on the bed, toweled dry my hair and ran my fingers through it. I could’ve used a comb but then it wouldn’t have matched the bags under my eyes, the
stitches on my brow, or the two-day stubble shading my cheeks. The mirror smiled at me proudly.

Diane leaned back on the pillows
—Will snuggled next to her—and laced the hem of the top sheet around her fingers. “I told him you were okay. He wanted to know what caused the accident.”

Her eyes came on me. I zipped up
my pants then slid the belt on. “I got into a high speed chase and lost control of the vehicle. What’s so surprising about that?”

“I told him you were okay,
but he still sounded concerned.”

“Well, yeah. You told him I was fine, so that should’ve taken care of his
concerns
.”

“Why do you see a geneticist?”

The question irritated me. Why it irritated me I couldn’t tell. In a perfect world a perfect me would’ve answered, “Because I have some kind of genetic issues.” But my world has always been far from perfect. So instead I snapped, “Hell, D. Why d’you go about answering my phone?”

That didn’t go down easy. She hopped off the bed and stormed out
of the room, a totally unaware Will scuttling happily behind her.

“D!” I grabbed guns and holsters and followed her
to the kitchen.

She dropped a breakfast dish in t
he sink. It clonked on top of the two-day old pile I’d left in there. The aroma of the coffee she’d brewed two hours ago was still in the air. I set my guns on the table, pulled a chair, sat down, and adjusted the ankle holster. “Are you coming to Parker Center?” I asked.

Diane opened the dishwasher
and started filling it like her life depended on it. “I got an offer from Harvard.”

Something in my head went silent. I pressed the ma
g release button on the Glock and let the magazine slide into my palm.

“The job at the Public School of Health I’d interviewed for. I got it,” Diane went on. “It’s a good offer. Good hours, good salary.”

“You get good hours and a good salary here, too.”

“Great benefits.”

“The LAPD has great benefits.”

She
transferred all dirty mugs from the sink to the dishwasher top rack and ignored my comment.

I pushed a new magazine inside the Glock’s well. “It’s in Boston.”

This time she turned and locked eyes with me. “Yes. It’s in Boston.”

There was sour in her voice. It stung like the morning chill on a wintry day.

I stood up, secured the pancake holster on my waistband and slid the Glock inside. “We’re on a hot trail,” I said. “We’re gonna catch this guy.”

She slammed the dishwasher closed. “You’re not listening, Track. I’m taking the job.”

I stood there, in the middle of the kitchen, no more expressive than a chipped statue in a forgotten church.

“You’re going to Boston?
” I said.

“Give me a reason
not
to go.”

Her statement hung like an unfinished sentence in a blank page. I wanted to put a period at the end of it. Yet I was nothing but a pen whose ink had all dried up.

I tilted her chin up and kissed her. And then I left.

*  *  *

The midafternoon sun cast a layer of dullness on everything. Skinny palm trees staggered against a hazy sky. Chafed one-story houses overlooked thirsty lawns circled by metal fences and cinder block walls embellished with wrought iron railings. Faded apartment buildings dominated each block, their gray, barred windows as welcoming as a pit bull growl.

Satish drove slowly and methodically. Eyes
followed us from the sidewalks, faces as old as time chewing cigarette butts on a staircase, their undershirts stained with grease and sweat. Dark-skinned kids played soccer with an empty can in a sweltering parking lot. Street names like Harmony and Amethyst and Topaz and Onyx glistened at the corners of lonely crossings, next to a rusted leasing sign or a lost cat flyer pinned to a telephone pole.

I said, “We were here two minutes ago.”

“I know.”

“Need extra mileage?”

“No. Just thought we’d take a look at the neighborhood first.”

He finally pulled the vehicle over and killed the engine. I felt a little prickling at the back of my neck. “Which house?” I said.

He cocked his head. “Number 5130.”

“Number 5130 Celestial Drive?” I repeated.

“Correct.”

“Lyanne Norris, age
fifty-nine?”

Sat hid his surprise behind black shades. “Correct.”

“Diagnosed with gastric cancer five years ago, two surgeries, three rounds of chemo, confined to bed since last February. She the one who supposedly owns the Volvo I saw fly over the San Pablo intersection last night?”

Satish leered at me from behind the shades
. He swallowed, slowly slid the shades off, and then leered some more. “Have you been practicing mind reading over your sabbatical from the police force?”

“No. I’ve been sniffing out missing people. And one in particular I’d sort of given up on
, until her path led me to six dead infants.”

Katya Krikorian, the missing persons case I took on over my short stint as a P.I.
, had gone missing last May. She had just visited Lyanne Norris the day she disappeared. Katya left Lyanne’s house, parked her car a couple of miles away, and never made it back home. I’d come to 5130 Celestial Drive twice. The first time nobody answered the door, while the second time I managed to talk to Lyanne’s nurse. Had I known what I knew today, I wouldn’t have contented myself with the brief chat we had at the door. Damn it, had I known, I would’ve found a way to get into the house and sniff the whole place inside out. But what reason did I have, back then, to suspect a harmless woman confined to bed? The nurse told me Lyanne was sleeping and confirmed that she had terminal cancer and had not left her bed for the past five months—same story painted by the police report filed under the missing persons.

Satish tapped the steering wheel with the side of his thumb. “Obviously the woman doesn’t drive.
She either loaned it or it got stolen and she didn’t report the theft.”

I swallowed, feeling like a complete idiot.
“She has a son,” I said, bitterly. “Lyanne’s nurse told me she hardly sees him, but he’s the one taking care of Lyanne when her shift is over.”

“You didn’t interview the son?” Satish asked.

I shook my head. “
The officers who investigated the missing persons did. The report didn’t raise any flags, and the nurse said he’d never been there during Katya’s visits. He seemed pretty innocuous, just an average joe who took care of his ill mother, and—Damn it.”

It was clicking in
to place. I just remembered that his job description in the report was “medical researcher.”

“Let’s go,” Satish said.

We stepped out of the car and crossed the street. The air was hot and viscous. It slowed down everything, even sounds. An inflatable pool simmered in the sun in front of the house next door. A rubber duckie bobbed its head from the shallow water.

Number 5130 stood at the top of a driveway that
led to a one-story cottage house in cracked pink stucco, with tacky plastic awnings hanging over the front windows. The exterior needed a paint job, the window frames begged to be replaced, and the roof had seen better days. A mop of unruly ivy choked the sidewall to the right, crawled around the edge, and sprawled across the garage door. It promised to be an interesting garage, one that hadn’t seen fresh air in a long time.   

Two trash bins were amassed against a metal fence. Sickly dandelions infested what was left of a lawn.

Satish walked to the door. I stayed back, inhaled, and didn’t like what I smelled.

Satish knocked. Nobody answered. He knocked again, louder.

“Sat.”

“Hmm.”

“There’s a smell.”

Satish rocked on his heels. “Don’t look at me, Track. I fart Indian.” He chortled and tried the door again.

I shook my head and looked around. A little boy stared at me from behind the fence next door. I waved. He showed me the rubber duckie he’d retrieved from the tub. A door slammed from his house and a woman too old to be his mother and too young to be his grandmother marched out and padded across the front yard barefoot. She picked up the child and quickly turned away.

“Ma’am,” I called.

She turned with deliberate effort. I cocked my head toward the pink cottage. “Noticed any activity at all today?”

“
She’s sick,” she spat. “She no longer comes out.”

“Who takes care of her?”

The boy squirmed in her arms. She narrowed her eyes, studying me. I slid out my badge wallet and held it up for her to see. That loosened her tongue a bit but not too much.

“They had a home nurse.” She shrugged a shoulder, tweaked half a lip. “She couldn’t take it anymore and quit. Her son
takes care of her now. Nice fellow. Doesn’t talk much, but puts up with a lot of crap.”