The Undertaker

 1

^{___________________________} 

This was the part of the job I hated the most:

Seeing dead kids.

No matter how many times I hauled myself through the process it never got any easier.

Some things are like that.

We are told, as children, that fear comes from not knowing. On this particular occasion I knew exactly what to expect: I knew the horror that awaited me – and yet fear was gripping my stomach like a vice. The rationalist within me argued it was my old ulcer in need of lubrication, when really, if I was brutally honest, I was chilled to the core at the thought of what was to come.

Being a father does that, I guess.

 2

^{___________________________}

It was 4AM on a cold January morning in Los Angeles – the kind that sucks the warmth right out of the skin. I should have been in bed, oblivious to all that is terrible. Instead I was attending a murder scene.

            There are two things you should know about me: The first is, I used to look after myself. Keep myself in some kind of shape. One of those guys you see sweating down the street first thing on a Sunday morning, working his way towards his first heart attack at thirty-five. I used to do a lot of things. Not anymore. The second is, I don’t believe in coincidences.

The Union Pacific rail yard is an eerie place after dark. Littered with the corpses of rusting freight cars and skeletal cranes. Through the murk, I could see six or seven police units parked alongside the train tracks, deep in the impenetrable shadow of the Seventh Street Bridge. Two or three plain-clothed automobiles. A Crime Lab van. Flashing neon casting luminous spectres. Not the kind of place you bring the kids for a picnic.

I watched my step as I crossed oily shingle towards a willowy officer standing on her own in the middle of the tracks. She looked lost. Indecisive. Fear had carved the words scared shitless into her face. I wondered if mine looked the same.        

‘They reckon it’s your boy,’ she called as I approached.

No meet and greet. No ID request. No polite pleasantries on what an unusually cold morning it was. Just straight for the kill. I could see breath smoke from her lips.

Diesel clawed at my throat.

‘This your first homicide?’ I called back. I was being sensible: hands sheathed in gloves. A winter coat with the collar up. A scarf wouldn’t have gone amiss.

The willowy officer offered a stiff nod.

‘First of fucking anything.’

She didn’t hide her nerves. Didn’t mince her words.

‘I think they put me up here for a joke.’ She said, hugging herself for warmth. ‘Do you think they put me up here for a joke?’

She was probably right, but I shook my head all the same. She was a week out of the Academy and shy of street seasoning by twenty years. Somebody was enjoying a laugh at her expense. Not me; I would have run a three minute mile if only my old legs were game.

‘Where is everyone?’

She pointed with a flashlight. ‘Under the bridge.’ The beam struck riveted stanchions, lost itself in the darker cavities. ‘Down by the river. You get there through a gap in the chain-link. That’s where they found the body. Down there. Fuck me. I never seen nothing like that before. Want me to show you?’

She wanted to. Desperately. I could sense it. Feel it. Anything to get out of this godforsaken rail yard and back amongst the living.

‘I know the way.’ I said to her dismay.

The crime scene lay under the dark, ribbed underbelly of the bridge. Down by the water: where the missing showed up – either drugged or dead and sometimes both.

‘They reckon it’s your boy,’ she repeated as I walked away.

My Boy.

Funny how two simple, normally unassuming words can cut you clean to the core. As though the killer somehow belonged to me.

Let’s make no bones: ordinarily, I am unfazed by this process. Dead bodies don’t give me the creeps. I have seen enough of evil to know it exists and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. But tonight was different. Tonight I was on tenterhooks. Wound up and as jumpy as a kid on his first date. The location, its significance and the fact I was working my first homicide in twelve months were all conspiring to jar my nerves and throw me off balance.

Sometimes staying in bed isn’t a bad idea.

‘You took your time.’

I nodded a fashionably late nod to my fledgling partner of the last three weeks, Jamie Garcia. She was waiting for me on the lip of the manmade trench otherwise known as the LA River. Even at this unholy hour her whole demeanour spoke business.

I ducked through the gap in the fence.

Jamie handed me a raised eyebrow and a patrolman’s flashlight. ‘What took you so long?’

‘I got pulled over for running three stop lights in a row.’ I shook the flashlight. ‘This thing work?’

I banged it with my fist. The light spluttered, then stayed lit.

I shone the beam across Jamie’s face. ‘Sure you’re up for this, Jamie?’

Jamie gave me one of those glances that women do when they want a man to know they have all their bases covered.

‘I’m not the one who looks like they’ve seen a ghost.’ She said.

 3

^{___________________________}

Child homicides are no stroll in the park. You never get used to them; you just get good at hiding.

The first attending officers had rigged a gaudy yellow-and-black tape cordon around the crime scene. Given our isolation, it was more window dressing than functional.

We worked our way down the steep concrete slope towards all the activity. Sending loose grit skittering ahead of us as we went.

Behind the flimsy tape, a Forensics team were cataloguing potential bits of evidence in the glare of portable lamps. Scrupulously. Like archaeologists embarking upon a very special dig. Nothing like you see in the movies. In real life, death is far from glamorous. No Gucci sunglasses or Jimmy Choos here. These boys and girls from the Crime Scene Unit wore surgeon’s slippers and hair nets. Here to bag and tag. Collect evidence, not compliments.

            Captain De La Hoya of our neighbouring Hollenbeck Division acknowledged our arrival with a wave, broke off his conversation with one of his detectives and met us at the tape. I hadn’t seen De La Hoya in over half a year. There was a time we’d meet socially, at least once a week. Those days were long gone.

‘Gabe,’ he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. Hard enough to show he meant business. ‘Good to see you, mi amigo. It’s been too long. I keep meaning to call. But you know how it is. How are you? I heard you were back. Missed you, bro.’ The handshake turned into a brotherly hug. I let it go its own course.

De La Hoya and I have history. Good history. I’d been neglectful.

I felt him pat me out. ‘You feel thin, mi amigo. Here, let me look at you.’ He held me at arm’s length and looked me over like a parent examining a muddy child. ‘You look like shit. Real shit. None of that candy cotton shit these kids call shit. Can’t be easy for you being back here. How you holding up?’

‘Fine.’ A fib. A little white lie. Call it what you will. Your choice. No one wants to hear a moan. It felt like someone was playing a bad Scott Joplin rendition in my stomach. Everything jangling. ‘You?’

My old friend from Hollenbeck backed off a little. He looked older than I remembered. Tired. Like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

‘Maria lost her mom right before Christmas.’ He said with a tilt of his head. ‘She’s taken it real bad. We all have.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He nodded.

Make no mistakes, De La Hoya is a bulldog of a man. Like the canine in comparison, he is short and stocky in a sturdy kind of way. As such, it takes a bulldozer to move him.

He stared at me with distant eyes.

I cleared my throat.

‘So what we got here, Miguel?’

‘Damned weird is what.’ He said, snapping back to the present. ‘Your boy’s freaked out half my men. Some of the hardest, too.’

We ducked under the tape.

‘You sure it’s our boy?’

‘Looks that way. He got a fetish for funerals?’

I glanced at Jamie. She was looking directly at me. Had been all the while. Both our faces told the same horrified story. ‘Maybe.’

A girl from the CSU handed us each a pair of plastic slippers to go over our day shoes. Noisily, we slipped them on.

 4

^{___________________________}

The victim was a little girl. No older than nine, or maybe ten. I am no good with ages. She was lying face-up on a small tartan blanket – like the kind they sell in automobile accessory stores for protecting the velour against pet hair. She had a blaze of fiery-red hair. Porcelain skin. An ankle-length denim skirt with matching jacket. Barbie-pink baseball boots over stripy socks. Plastic kiddie jewellery – all intact. Nothing to show she’d been murdered or that she was even dead at all.

            My stomach curled into a ball.

‘Who found her?’

‘Night patrol acting on an anonymous tip-off. Looks like the call came from a disposable cell phone somewhere in North Hollywood. No traceable number. I wonder why he wanted us to find her.’

‘Because normally this place is crawling with rats.’ I said. ‘Come morning there’d be nothing left of her.’

I inched my way forward over loose gravel.

The child might have been sleeping, had it not been for the positioning of her limbs: her legs were dead straight, feet angled up on their heels, with hands clasped tight across the chest in the customary pose of interment. It was an uncomfortable posture for the living to hold. Fake. Added post-mortem. I’d seen it before – in the home of the killer’s previous victim less than twenty-four hours earlier. At both scenes, the killer had sprinkled red rose petals around the body. Smeared a rough cross of ash on the brow. Arranged the scene like a mock burial.

I caught sight of a patrolman quietly parting with his evening meal down by the water’s edge. That had been me, twelve months ago. Back when Miguel and I had last stood on this unholy ground.

‘This place is pretty isolated,’ I heard Jamie say. ‘Our killer could be local.’

Fact: killers tend to dump bodies in convenient places. In dirt ditches down the side of a desolate country road. In the backyard under three feet of topsoil. Or at the bottom of a reedy lake. Jamie was right: the killer must have known about this location beforehand. Known how to slip through the gap in the chain-link fence. Known to avoid the slippery, deadly drainage gratings spewing runoff into the canal.

In the magnesium light coming from the portable lamps everything looked like the surface of the Moon: dead, bleached. But I knew it was pitch black here normally at this hour. The killer would have known that too. Knew he could spend as much time down here as he liked, arranging the scene without the risk of being interrupted. Or caught.

I looked closer.

Just like the with the previous victim, the child had no defensive wounds. No obvious signs of trauma. No ligature marks. Everything neat and tidy. No outward sign of an attack of any kind.

Even in death she was tragically pretty. But her lips were the colour of her denim.

Now I could see why half of De La Hoya's men were spooked: it felt like we were intruding on a funeral in clumsy plastic slippers.

I forced myself to breathe.

‘How long’s she been down here?’

‘The Medical Examiner reckons less than a couple of hours. First responders got here within five minutes of the call.’

Still warm. Blood pooling. Suicidal cells.

I slipped off a glove and picked up one of the rose petals. It was a damp slice of black velvet between my fingertips. I rubbed at it, crumbling it up.

‘What about sexual assault?’

            We all looked at Jamie. Every eye beneath the bridge. I saw a shiver run through De La Hoya’s tense expression; he was a father too. Most here were. It was one of those subjects everybody was thinking but nobody wanted to broach.

            ‘The ME doesn’t think so. Sweet Jesus, I hope not. But you’ll have to confirm it with him, later. The ME, that is. Not Jesus.’

Jamie snapped a hand inside a Latex glove. Went down on her haunches. She didn’t seem fazed at all. Still new to all this. Still in practical mode. I watched her place a rubberised thumb against the girl’s blue lips. Apply a little pressure. But the child’s mouth remained defiantly closed.

De La Hoya touched my arm, ‘Gabe. This was tucked under her hands when we found her.’

It was a transparent evidence bag. I peered at the contents through the cloudy polythene. Inside was a torn photograph – half of a larger print. Ripped right down the middle. I could just make out the image of a man in a tuxedo. He was smiling. Looked happy. I recognised his face.

 ‘Thanks.’ I said, and slipped it in my pocket.
 

 5

^{___________________________}

I should have gone straight home. I didn’t. I headed north instead – through deserted streets crowded with shuttered stores. I was too pumped to think about sleep. Had been for months. I jumped on and off Highway 101. Followed illuminated signs for the Dodger Stadium. Traffic was light. A few garbage trucks doing the rounds. Shift workers. The usual insomniacs. I passed a billboard advertising courses at the USC: a man and woman with Colgate smiles. The ripped photograph was burning a hole in my pocket.

I left the turnpike after a couple of miles and crossed quiet intersections until I came to Carroll Avenue. I wasn’t exactly sure what I hoped to find here. The neighbourhood looked asleep. No surprise at this hour. I slowed the car to a crawl. Passed darkened homes hidden behind subdued street lighting. Pulled up outside a property with an old Datsun rusting on the driveway.

In the dark, the place wasn’t much to look at: a Victorian two-storey clapboard affair. Porch. Pitched roofs. Leaning back from the roadside on a slight elevation of grass and azalea. A long flight of stone steps. It looked like the Norman Bates house. A little rain and lightning and you’d expect to hear a few screams coming from that tiny attic window. I hadn’t noticed the similarity yesterday, in broad daylight. Darkness has a way of making the mundane look monstrous.

            In the photograph, the man’s face looked suddenly less happy, like he was wearing the smile for somebody else’s benefit. Not mine. Maybe it was the sodium street lamps. I turned on the interior light for a better look. Took out my reading glasses. Peered closer. The picture had been taken in a TV studio; I could see big TV cameras and boon microphones in the background. There was a guy just over his shoulder. A grey-haired guy with a short grey beard. Pointy face. He was looking at our man in the tux. At the back of his head. Not the camera taking the shot. Pointy Face was wearing a frown from ear to ear.

            I switched off the light. Got out of the car. Pulled up my collar. Took a moment to see if anyone was watching. There was no sign of the crowd that had jostled in this street less than a day earlier. No curtains twitching. No morbid fascinations behind zoom lenses. Everything ordinary. But police tape still crisscrossed the front door of the old Victorian dwelling. In just a few words it said that something terrible had happened here, recently.

I ventured up the stoop. Used a pocket knife to break the black-and-yellow seal. Again, made sure no one was watching. Then cracked open the door and slipped inside.

The place was dark, quiet. There was a smell of musk or damp wood. A pine forest after rainfall. The gentle, hypnotic heartbeat of a clock somewhere deep inside. Could be an ordinary home anywhere, with the family tucked up tight upstairs. A faithful hound curled at the foot of the master bed. Sweet dreams. No comprehension that an intruder was standing with his back pressed against their front door. No such luck. Not in the house from Psycho. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the gloom. I didn’t put on lights. I don’t know why. Respect, maybe. Privacy? I stayed there a minute or two, heart pounding, listening. Wondering what thoughts had coursed through another man’s mind as he’d stood in this same spot early Sunday morning.

I got out a Maglite. Ran the narrow beam across the hallway. Dust motes danced. Mahogany stair rods popped in and out of view. A hand rail with traces of fingerprint powder. Ivy green walls. Some of those painted wooden face masks allegedly from Africa but really from China. More chalky dust around a brass light switch. Traces of it all the way up the stairs.

Nothing had changed since the last time I’d been here. Disregard the latent dust on the door jambs and the handles and it didn’t look like a crime scene. Like I say, an ordinary home. Yours or mine. No real clue pointing to the fatal events which had played themselves out here up those very stairs. No evidence that the place had been swarming with cops, the CSU, the clean-up crew, half the Department. Everything ordinary.

But I could still detect a scent of death that no amount of detergent nor elbow grease can erase.

 6

^{___________________________}

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t make a habit of creeping around in the dead of night – especially in other peoples’ houses. I have my job like you have yours. It’s just that mine involves that sort of thing.

I snapped hands inside Latex gloves and followed the Maglite into the living room. It knew the way. Wooden flooring creaked against my weight. Heels clacked, then turned to soft thuds as I crossed onto thick carpeting.

This was the home of the killer’s first victim: Professor Jeffrey Samuels – a singleton in his late fifties – found dead as a doorknob by his cleaning lady early Sunday morning. So far, I knew three definite facts about Professor Jeffrey Samuels of Carroll Street:

One – he’d had an ear for Mozart.

And two – he’d had a taste for fancy French wine.

To my unrefined ear, the classics all sounded the same. But I could tell the difference between a merlot and a chardonnay, mainly by their colour.

The third fact probably had no bearing on the case whatsoever.

I moved deeper into the living area. Scanned the flashlight over the everyday bric-a-brac that fills our homes. Shadows scurried to hide themselves in alcoves and behind furniture. There were books on shelves. Leather-bounds mixed with paperbacks. A few trinkets – souvenirs from vacations outside of the States. More wooden carvings of African witch doctors. Droopy-breasted Ethiopian women. Genderless figurines entwined in dance. Carved from mahogany or some other hardy rainforest resource. I kept scanning. I knew what I was looking for. Light glinted off glass – framed certificates in amongst framed photographs, hung above a faux fireplace that had a large bowl of plastic geraniums where hot coals should have been.

The pictures were mainly of him: Samuels. Accepting awards at glitzy ceremonies or posing with celebrities at charity galas. The professor looked uncomfortably popular. Square peg in a round hole. In most of the shots he was wearing the same tuxedo and the same forced smile. Same as the photo curled up in my hand.

There are two reasons why people plaster their living spaces with photographs of themselves: vanity or validation. Judging by Samuels’ strained expression, these pictures were more about self-confirmation than narcissism. But listen to me: I’m no psychologist.

One of the frames was slightly tilted on its nail.

You wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.

And I was looking for it.

I peered closer.

And that’s when something thudded above my head.

Breath froze in my throat.

Skulking around the home of a dead man in the dead of night comes at a price. The mind likes to play tricks. It’s nature’s precursor to our fight or flight reflex. The crooked branch of a tree tapping against a window pane. Wind whistling Tubular Bells under the eaves. In the thick of night they morph into every mortal danger known to the imagination. Another fact of mine: I don’t believe in ghosts – so don’t try and convince me otherwise. The seemingly inexplicable is not necessarily unexplainable.

I waited ten seconds. Heard no more sounds. Then clamped the Maglite between teeth and carefully lifted the tilted picture frame down off the wall.

There was a sliver of an image in the centre of the mount. Ripped down both edges. Barely the width of my little finger. I hadn’t noticed it yesterday. Wasn’t exactly sure if the discrepancy had even been there yesterday. I placed the torn photo in the evidence bag against the left edge of the sliver.

They were an exact fit.

 7

^{___________________________}

Like I say, I don’t believe in coincidences – especially when it comes to homicide. Coincidences are for people who think the universe is cute. It isn’t.

My cell phone shrilled. It sounded like an air raid siren. I almost dropped the picture frame. Rummaged it out before it woke neighbours and got every dog in the vicinity howling.

A text message:

‘Meet me at Winston’s. 5:30. You’re buying.’

I checked my watch. Not quite five.

Something clunked upstairs.

Just so you know: I have this thing I call my Uh-Oh Radar. It comes from deep down in the gut and can pick up ley lines better than any dowser. Most of the time it goes about its business without demanding too much attention. But every now and then it screams like a banshee.

I tipped my best ear towards the ceiling, listened.

Nobody was home. Even I shouldn’t have been here. Samuels had no pets. No tenants. No skeletons in the closet I didn’t already know about. No reason why anything should be clunking around upstairs.

Gently, I stood the frame on the mantelpiece. Slid out my non-issue Glock. All the while with my ear tilted towards the ceiling.

Something made a shuffling sound directly above my head.

Instinctively, I started towards the hallway.

Then it sounded like somebody running. Thudding across the ceiling. Right above me. Moving faster.

I rattled around furniture. Rushed to the foot of the stairs. Hollered a warning – one of those generic police phrases etched into the public psyche thanks to procedural cop shows.

But nobody hollered back.

I stared along the gun’s sights. Shone the powerful Maglite up the stairs. I could hear blood banging against my ears. Feel hot adrenaline in my stomach.

On the landing, a curtain was fluttering in an open window that hadn’t been open a second or two earlier.

Somebody was in the house!

I took a cautious step up the stairway. One, two, three. Then heard the rumble of an engine kick into life outside. I turned. Jumped back down the stairs. Threw open the front door and clattered down the stone steps – just in time to see a dark SUV tear away from the curb and go screeching down the street at a breakneck speed.

Automatically, I held up the cell phone and snapped a picture of the fleeing vehicle.

 8

^{___________________________}

Recently, more out of convenience than conviction, the all-night bar known as Winston’s has become my regular haunt of late – especially of late. It’s a stone’s throw from my place on Valencia. So it’s reason enough to get me out of the house whenever I’m home.

 I squinted at the harsh glare of the strip lights illuminating the sidewalk before going inside. A bell tinkled against glass. I said hello to Old Milo camped behind the counter. Milo is part of the fixtures and fittings hereabouts. He had a copy of Playboy on his lap and a bottle of beer in hand.

‘Detective.’ He said without looking up.

‘Milo.’

I continued onward through aisles of magazines. Processed foodstuffs. Fast cars and potato chips. Followed the smell of freshly-brewed coffee.

Winston’s is actually a 24-hour drugstore with a bar in back. The place has seen easier days, but it does what it says on the sign. The bar itself is comprised of a handful of Formica-covered tables, collapsible chairs, a few rickety stools along the bar. Worn but working. Re-runs of the weekend’s games loop on a TV at the end of the bar. The picture’s fuzzy – a bit like its surroundings.

I slid onto a stool. There was only one other patron here tonight: a young bearded anti-establishment dude with dreadlocks and a distrusting face. He was sitting at a table in the far corner. Back to the wall. Tapping away at a battered notebook. Every now and then his suspicious eyes glanced around the room. He realised I was watching and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

I pulled off gloves. Stuffed them in a pocket.

Dreads virtually lived here. But then again so did I.

‘The usual, Mr Q?’

Winston Young – seven feet on bare soles – poured a cup of black coffee, added three sugars. Pushed it across the counter.

I gave him a look that read ‘I’m expecting more’ and he graciously added a thimble of neat whiskey and a bowl of pistachios to my order.

‘Thanks.’

‘No problem, Mr Q.’

I picked up the coffee. Sipped. Scalded lips. Felt my grumbling ulcer grumble a little less.

Distantly, I heard the bell chime against the door. Somebody had entered the store. I knew who that somebody was. The plastic Lakers clock behind the bar said it was precisely five-thirty. I saw Winston sink into the shadows behind the bar, like a vampire shrinking from the approaching dawn.

‘Of all the bars in all of the world … isn’t it a little early for coffee?’

Eleanor Zimmerman is the white Grace Jones. She has a silvery, box-cut hairdo, impossibly-sharp cheek bones and the disposition of a domesticated tiger. Eleanor is like the human equivalent of one of those hardboiled sweets with the sticky soft centre. Her dress sense is something else entirely. Shoulder pads and 80’s disco. Somehow it works.

She perched herself on the stool next to mine and gave me the once over. Whenever my life seems in crisis, Eleanor turns up like a bad penny. Sometimes I think she stalks me. But she’ll have you believing she’s my guardian angel.

‘What ditch have we been sleeping in? You look like shit.’

‘What do you want, Eleanor?’

‘This, for starters.’ She picked up the thimble of whiskey and downed it in one. Then flapped a hand at Winston to come fill her up. He approached, cautiously. Poured the whisky at arm’s length. Like Eleanor was contagious.

‘Isn’t it a little early for hard liquor?’ I countered.

‘What do you care, Detective? Moreover, what do I care? It’s medicinal. Prescribed. If you’ve got a problem with it, talk with my doctor.’ She scooped a handful of pistachios from the little dish on the bar and started skinning them.

I sipped scalding coffee. Said nothing.

Eleanor detests silence. I do it on purpose.

‘Did somebody die?’ she asked Winston after a few seconds.

Winston stalled like an unrehearsed actor on stage for the first time. He blinked, as if blinded by a spotlight. I saw his mouth work wordlessly. Bewilderment in his big brown doleful eyes.

‘Stop picking on him, Eleanor.’

‘You’re picking on me.’

‘I’m allowed to.’

‘You mean I let you.’ Eleanor threw more doomed nuts into her mouth and cracked them apart with big white teeth. She stared at me. Like I had transparent skin and she could see all the darkness churning away inside of me.

‘I hear you’ve been back to the scene of the crime.’

She emphasised the last four words, as if they were something to be hallowed. I didn’t like it. Made a face to show it. Making faces is one of my fortes. You’ll see. Sometimes they get me out of trouble. Mostly, they get me in it.

‘Eleanor, have you been following me?’

‘Why, are you on Twitter?’

I kept the face held. ‘It’s been ten months; I don’t need to talk about it. And I don’t need mothering.’

‘Really? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Do you even own a mirror?  You make Lieutenant Columbo look like a fashion icon. What’s with the sneakers?’

‘They’re comfortable.’

‘With dress pants?’

I sighed; Eleanor never missed a trick.

‘When you get to my age you don’t do style. You do practical. Besides, you’re wearing pyjamas underneath your coat, aren’t you?’

‘That’s because it’s the middle of the night, darling. And I live round the corner.’

Again, I said nothing. Watched her slip a slender silver tube between her lips.

‘I thought you quit.’

‘I have. But what do you care? This is one of those extremely of the moment gadgets that fool the brain into thinking it’s stopped smoking.’ She waggled it under my nose. ‘Would you like a drag? Oh, that’s right: I forget; you quit. Along with everything else.’

I shook my head. Swallowed down a smart retort. Sarcasm was Eleanor’s middle name. I almost got up then and there. Didn’t.

Instead I watched her draw a lungful of vaporised nicotine, then release it slowly from the corner of her mouth like Lauren Bacall in the movie To Have And Have Not. It curled upwards and away like a liberated spirit. Don’t ask me why, but I have always considered the act of a woman smoking as mesmerising. Maybe even seductive.

She blew fake smoke in my direction.

‘Is that thing even legal?’

‘Oddly, yes.’ She flapped a hand at Winston. He pretended not to notice. ‘Hey, barkeep. Am I breaking any laws smoking this in here?’

I saw him think it through. Then shake his head.

‘See.’

‘Winston’s a pushover. He’d let you cut coke and smoke dope in here so long as you kept drinking his whiskey.’

It was Eleanor’s turn to make a face. ‘Gabriel Quinn, you are such a cynic.’

Now I did stand up. Unfolded a twenty and some ones out  on the counter.

‘Maybe so. But I still don’t want to talk about it. See you later, Doc.’

 9

^{___________________________}

In my line of work you need patience and cunning. Plus the gumption to know when to use which.

I waited in the shadowy alleyway down the side of Winston’s for fifteen long minutes until Eleanor shuffled past in her slippers. Made sure she was out of sight before going back inside.

            Dreads looked up as I sat down opposite him at the Formica-covered table. ‘She’s pheromonal, man.’

            ‘Is that even a real word?’ I asked.

            ‘It is in my world.’

            I pointed to his notebook. ‘How’s the exposé shaping up?’

            Dreads is a writer – or so he’d told me. Working on conspiracy theories. I saw him loop a defensive arm around the computer.

‘That’s classified, man.’ He hunched over it. ‘Why you pushing me? I’m not ready to go public yet. I don’t ask about your work. Stop pushing me, man.’

            ‘I thought we were buddies.’

            ‘Yeah. We are. Buddies. That’s fine in here. We’re in the Neutral Zone. Kind of like lawyer confidentiality. But out there it’s a dog eat dog world. You’re a cop and you’re okay. But that don’t make us networked.’

            I dug out my phone and brought up the snapshot of the SUV racing away from the Samuels crime scene. It looked like a black smudge in a yellow fog. A few blurry lights. Shapes that could be anything. Pathetic, really. I was never any good with cameras. I pushed it across the table.

‘Can you do anything with this?’

            Dreads uncoiled himself from the notebook. Partially tilted its lid away from me before picking up the cell. I watched him turn it around in his hand as if it was a hand grenade.

‘Guess I could phone my mom. Haven’t phoned her in like a month. Too much pressure, man.’

‘What about the photo?’

I saw him glance at the image, as if realising it was there for the first time. Saw one corner of his lip tweak upwards.

‘What’s this supposed to be?’

            ‘An SUV.’

‘No shit.’

‘I need the licence number.’

‘What you need is a miracle.’

‘Can you do anything with it?’

‘Sure. But don’t you have police techno dudes for this kind of thing?’

            I smiled. Over the last ten months I’d gotten to know Dreads just about as well as anyone was allowed to get to know Dreads. In a strange kind of way I trusted him. Not the kind of way needed to house-sit or come feed the dog twice a day while you’re out at work, but the kind that keeps lips zippered. In some ways it’s a deeper kind of trust.

I unfolded a fifty dollar bill and hooked it over the top of his computer screen. ‘You’re faster.’ I said. ‘By about a week.’

 10

^{___________________________}

Sometimes I am my own worst enemy. A mule with masochistic musings. I still didn’t go home. I sat in my car outside Winston’s and thought about the missing half of the photograph still burning a hole in my pocket. It looked like a TV studio. But which network? And where? More importantly, why had the killer vandalised the photograph in the first place? Why leave one half with the murdered little girl and take the other with him? What did it mean?

            You know how I feel about coincidences.

            I drove. West then South. On automatic pilot. Driving helps me think. The monotony makes mysteries unravel. I thought about the nature of the two murders. The rose petals. The crosses of ash. The glued lips and the meticulous staging of each scene. You didn’t need a degree in psychology to know that the killer was making a statement. My job was to figure it out in time to prevent more innocent lives from being lost.

Is that what I believed: that he’d kill again?

I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t. Neither homicide had the characteristics of a spur of the moment knee-jerk reactive killing. Both had been planned beforehand. Staged. I wondered why.

As for a connection, I needed more information.

Road signs blurred by. Intersections. Traffic signals.

I was distracted. Something was bugging me: I was undecided if the location of the child’s body was coincidence or contrivance. There was that word again. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the image out of my head. Some things indelibly etch themselves in our brains. I remember a photograph taken in Vietnam during the American insurgence. A simple monochrome composition of a naked, scrawny fleck of a child screaming as he she fled advancing US Marines. Behind her lay her slain father, his brains blown out across the pavement. I’d spent thirty years trying to shake it off. Never had. The events of this morning had bled colour into that picture.

            I pulled over and killed the engine. Looked around, absently for a while, before realising I was back where I’d started: in the grubby rail graveyard next to the manmade river channel.

I got out. I don’t know why. Took a deep, cool breath.

            The numerous city vehicles had disappeared. And with them the flashing lights and the distorted radio chatter.

            No signs of the willowy officer.

            No activity at all.

            It was like nothing terrible had even happened here.

            But I knew otherwise.

            I started walking. Passed silent freight cars, snuggled up tail to tail for the night like snoozing mastodons. This place had an old factory smell about it. Decades of oil mixed with the scent of sewage coming up from the river. I had an inkling why the killer had chosen this spot. But I didn’t want to confront it. Not yet. I was hoping I was wrong.

I hunched into my coat. Worked my way over the grimy shingle to the gap in the chain-link fence. Used the Maglite to lead the way down the steep concrete slope. I came to a slimy grating spewing stinking water out into the channel. Jumped it. Almost lost it. Caught myself and cursed.

Every nerve in my body was vibrating.

The Maglite beam found the black-and-yellow police tape. The first responders had looped it around the thick concrete pillars supporting the overpass. I homed in on it.

Forensics and their portable lamps had long since vacated the scene. So, too, had my Police Captain friend and his men. I ducked under the tape. Moved deeper into the gloom. Somebody had chalked a rough rectangle onto the dirty concrete, indicating the location of the blanket. I kept a respectful distance.

Turned off the Maglite.

Darkness engulfed.

But it wasn’t completely dungeon-dark beneath the bridge; I could make out the city glow above the river channel. And perhaps the first yellowy rays of dawn fingering their way in from the East.

I took another deep breath and looked around.

There was graffiti everywhere. Sprayed all along the sides of the manmade trench and up the squared-off pillars, higher than any arm could reach without assistance. Youthful venting. Multi-layered. All over the show. The City had given up painting it out a long time ago. Too costly. The voice of freedom was hard to stifle. But without the aid of the flashlight it lacked its day lit vibrancy.

I moved over to the closest pillar. Paused. Then placed a palm against its rough skin. I could feel the weight of the bridge bearing down. A thousand tons pressing me into the river basin. Above my head I could just make out the shape of a musical staff scraped onto the rendering. Five scrawled lines with thumbnail notes. I’d seen them before. Knew the score. Had played them in my head. Over and over again until they had driven me mad, almost.

I closed my eyes. Let the deathly atmosphere envelop. Dared to think about the last time I’d been here prior to this weekend.

‘Help me!’

I spun round with hot adrenaline flashing through my chest. Flung my eyes wide.

But there was nobody here.

Just the bitter aftertaste of regret.

 11

^{___________________________}

The lights were out and nobody was home. No delicious smells of home cooking wafting through from the kitchen. For that matter, no food in the refrigerator either. Same setup every time.

I dropped house keys in the dish on the telephone table. Left the lights off. I felt unclean; in need of a shower. But I shelved the thought – at least for the moment. Instead, I speed-dialled my daughter, Grace, in Florida. Whenever I am faced with a child homicide, I have this urgency to confirm that my own children are safe and well – even if they are grown up and moved out.

            The number rang and rang.

I thought about the murdered little girl lying all alone beneath the Seventh Street Bridge. Thought how I’d feel if she were mine. Thought about ripping the spine out of her spineless killer. Then banished the image to the darker recesses of my mind.

The number continued to ring.

I stood there for about a minute before remembering the time difference. I’m West Coast. Grace is East. A fact I seem to overlook too frequently. I dialled Grace’s direct line at her Fort Myers office. Went through the automated options with an impatient finger. Ordinarily, I resist calling Grace at work. I know how it feels to be distracted right in the midst of something important. The number went straight to automatic voice mail. I hung up.

Patience and cunning.

            I scratched the telephone receiver against the sandpaper stubble coating my jaw. It made a crackling sound. Something snagged. I winced. Grace would call back. As it was, she called at least three times a week. How’s my old Daddy doing? Are you still taking your meds? When are you coming to Florida?

I took a deep breath and telephoned my son, George, in New York. George and I lock horns. Always have. I heard an answering machine click into life. It was going to be one of those days.

‘Pick up, George.’ I breathed into the mouthpiece. ‘It’s your father. Remember me? Pick up if you’re there. I know you don’t want to speak with me right now. And that’s fine. But I need to hear your voice. Just a short hello will do. Just to know you’re okay.’

There was another click on the line and the answer-message was replaced by a woman’s voice:

‘Gabe? Hello? Is that you, Gabe? Give me a second …’

The harried voice belonged to Katie – my daughter-in-law. She sounded rushed and rightly so. I could hear my one-and-only grandchild in the background. It sounded like he was giving his mom a run for her money. Ask any new parent.

‘Katie, how are you? How’s the baby? I’ve been meaning to call all weekend. You know how it is.’

‘I certainly do. Babies are so time-absorbing. We’re all fine, Gabe. Connor’s teething.’

‘Is he?’ I felt a surge of grandpa pride. ‘So soon?’

‘He’s six months. In baby terms, he’s a late starter.’

‘Like his father.’

I heard her chuckle.

‘George isn’t home, is he?’

‘No, he isn’t. Was it urgent you speak with him?’

            I leaned against the door jamb and loosened up my tie. Some children give their parents more cause for concern the older they get.

‘Katie, it’s been ages since George and I last spoke. Families should stick together.’

She could hear the disappointment in my voice and tried to compensate. ‘He just needs some time. Don’t worry too much; he’ll come round.’

‘I hope so. Call me crazy, but I feel like we’re rapidly becoming strangers. He still doing those crazy sports of his?’

I heard her grunt. Answer enough.

‘Leaping off the El Capitan as we speak.’

‘In Yosemite?’ I shook my head. ‘Katie, he’s going to get himself killed!’

‘That’s exactly what I keep telling him. But you know how stubborn he is.’

‘Like his father.’

I heard her chuckle.

‘If he calls, I’ll pass on your love. Best I can do. How’s LA?’

‘Unusually cold. Something to do with El Niño and sunspots. What about New York?’

‘Central Park is under three feet of snow. And there’s rumours of icebreakers on the Hudson. Want to swap?’

‘No, thanks. Porous bones. How’s work?’

Working under her professional name of Kate Hennessey, my daughter-in-law is a successful television news journalist. She works out of the ABC Studios in New York City. Since she and George became an item, it’s been the norm for Katie to act as my official Media conduit on the Eastern Seaboard.

‘D.E.A.D.,’ she answered with a chuckle. ‘What about you?’

‘More or less the same.’ I sighed a little too loudly and Katie caught it.

‘Don’t tell me: back three weeks and already straight into the thick of things? I like your style, Gabe. It’ll most probably get you killed. But at least you’ll go out in a blaze of glory. Have they got you chasing a new serial?’

I thought it over. No doubt about it: both Samuels and the little girl had been murdered by the same hand. Same mock interment. Same calling cards. But the official definition of a serial killer came with a minimum of three kills, with a cooling off period in between. From all indications it looked like our boy had just embarked upon a killing spree.

‘I hope not.’

‘Dad ...’

‘I know, I know. I’m okay. I can handle it, Katie. I promise. You don’t need to worry yourself with me and my antics. You have enough on your plate with the baby.’ I didn’t add ‘and with my son’.

I heard her think it through. Mental gears whirring.

‘All right. Has he a name yet, this new one you’re chasing? I could do with a new meaty serial to boost ratings. And you know my viewers love Celebrity Cop updates.’

Inwardly, I cowered from the title – as I always did.

 12

^{___________________________}

Detective Bob Bales looked downhearted. I couldn’t blame him; Bales and his team were working triple overtime, but not for the extra pay or for the love of it. They were trying to track down a serial killer the Press had labelled Le Diable. Bales let his shoulders sag. I felt bad for him. Le Diable was a sneaky son of a bitch. Materialising out of thin air. Murdering men of the cloth. Then disappearing just as fast. No wonder the name had stuck. I could see a sheen of cold sweat on his balding pate. Could hear a tremor of despondency in his words as he addressed our small gathering. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. I wondered if I looked the same.

We were crammed into one corner of the large open-plan office area at the Station House like buddies gathered for a game. Two dozen attendees for the daily Robbery-Homicide update. Anyone within earshot and not out on the beat was invited. Some had fancy titles. Some wore police uniforms. All attentive. No beer and no pre-match banter. Never was for this kind of party.

            ‘Why are they calling him Le Diable?’ The question came from the fresh-faced officer I’d met earlier in the day, at the Union Pacific rail yard. She must have been the only one here who hadn’t seen the weekly updates in the Press. She saw me looking and smiled, fleetingly.

            Bales cleared his throat. ‘Partly because of the disturbing nature of the crime scenes.’

He held up a bunch of eight by ten pictures as proof. I could see images of satanic symbols drawn in the blood of clergymen. Chicken heads and other weird paraphernalia strewn around the blooded alters. I was glad it wasn’t my case.

‘But principally because the Media likes to Hollywoodise these kinds of things,’ he added.

Another word I didn’t think existed. Not bad for the first day of the week.

            Bales gave me the nod and suddenly it was my turn under the spot lamp. Limelight makes me look green. The only plus side is it helps hide the Saturnine rings orbiting my eyes.

I clambered to my feet. Put my back to the evidence board – home to a collected array of case notes and photos – and surveyed my audience. I recognised every tense face here. Knew several like friends. They were either sat or stood, with arms folded or drinking coffee, waiting to be brought up-to-speed on the weekend killings I was tentatively thinking of as The Mortician Murders. Childish, I know, but my conversation with Katie had got me thinking.

‘Over the last thirty-six hours we’ve had two homicides by the same hand,’ I began. ‘A professor from the USC and a child as yet unidentified.’ I copied Bales’ trick: held aloft a pair of eight by ten colour prints. ‘As you can see, the killer arranged each crime scene just the way he wanted it. Ceremoniously. He was in complete control the whole time. Here’s what we know so far:

‘We believe the first victim, Professor Jeffrey Samuels, a singleton in his mid-fifties, was killed sometime early Sunday morning.’ I stuck photos to the board as I spoke. ‘His cleaning lady found him at around ten a.m. and phoned the police right away. No signs of breaking and entering. No signs of a struggle. We did find two small burn marks side by side on Samuels’ neck, just here – so it looks like the killer overpowered him with a Taser.’

‘Home invasion?’

I shrugged my lip at Detective Janine Walters. Janine was one of our veteran detectives here at Central Precinct. She and her long-time partner, Fred Phillips, were a tour de force when it came to cracking cases. My asset.

‘Seems unlikely, Jan.’ I said. ‘Other than the murder itself there is no evidence of foul play of any kind whatsoever. It looks like Samuels let the perpetrator in and that’s when he hit him with the stun gun.’

‘Burglary gone sour?’ The suggestion came from one of the uniforms.

‘Again, it doesn’t look like it. Samuels was wearing a five grand Rolex when we found him. Plus, there was at least a thousand dollars in his wallet on the nightstand, together with a bunch of platinum credit cards. If anything, the Samuels’ residence looked like it had been tidied post mortem.’

‘I could do with one of those killers at my house,’ one of the sergeants muttered. ‘It’s murder keeping my place tidy.’

A wave of nervous laughter rippled through my audience.

I glanced at case notes.

‘Let’s see. Samuels’ blood alcohol level came back at over four times the legal limit – so he wouldn’t have put up much of a fight in any case, even without the Taser. No initial signs of drug or substance abuse.’

‘What about the cause of death?’

I looked up. ‘We’re still waiting to hear about that. Same goes for the child. I hear the ME’s had a busy weekend – so it could run through midweek before we get our answers. At this point, we can find no obvious causes. No ligature marks. No wounds. No petechial haemorrhaging – which means they weren’t suffocated or strangled. For now, it’s a mystery.’

I pinned a photograph to the board. It showed a close-up of the ash on Samuels’ forehead.

‘The killer made this mark on the brow of both victims. Trace are getting back to us when they’ve identified the type of ash he used.’

Fred Phillips leaned closer. ‘Looks like regular cigarette ash.’ Fred was the Precinct’s resident chimney; if anyone would know, he was our man. ‘That a cross or a letter X?’

‘Take your pick.’

‘Could be a religious nut.’

‘Maybe.’

I pinned another eight by ten to the board.

‘As you can see in this photograph, the killer dressed Samuels in a tuxedo and dinner shirt before lying him on his bed in the customary pose of interment. Notice the details. The killer took the time to wrap Samuels in a cummerbund, do up his bowtie and fasten his sleeves with fancy gold cufflinks.’

‘How do we know he wasn’t already wearing the tux?’

‘Good question, Jan. Here’s why: a neighbour and the last person to see him alive – other than the killer, that is – saw Samuels putting out trash shortly after midnight, Saturday. He was wearing pyjamas at the time. Those same pyjamas were found neatly folded away in a drawer in Samuels’ bedroom.’

The willowy officer: ‘If you ask me it looks like a suicide.’

I raised my brow. ‘And the first responders thought so too – until they came across the Taser marks. Plus, there were no signs of any pills, gunshot wounds or even a suicide note. No medication in the house to show Samuels suffered from depression or anxiety. Since the discovery this morning of the child’s body we are definitely looking for a repeat killer.’

The sergeant: ‘What did Samuels do at the University?’

‘He was Head of Genetics. But that’s pretty much all we know, for now. I intend visiting the campus this afternoon to interview his colleagues.’

Jan Walters: ‘What about the child, Gabe? Have you been able to identify her?’

Jamie spoke up: ‘We checked CLETS. She isn’t in the missing persons database.’

‘Plus, it’s the weekend.’ I added. ‘Which means there’s a chance she hasn’t been entered it into the system yet. The child’s clothes were clean. Which is a good indication she hasn’t been away from home long.’

I pinned a snapshot of the little girl to the board. Sensed the parents amongst us shrink from the image.

‘As you can see in this picture, the child was found laid out in the same way as Samuels. Position added post mortem. No signs of a struggle or bondage. Together with the cross of ash, we also found these same calling cards at both crime scenes.’

I added more vivid close-ups to the board. Rose petals sprinkled in a circle around the bodies. Something like superglue applied to the lips.

‘They make for a pretty distinctive signature.’ Fred Phillips was rubbing his chin. He was thinking what everybody else here was thinking. ‘What do we know about those? Anyone in the system with the same MO?’

‘So far we’ve found no similar signatures from known murderers either at large or behind bars. Other than the fact they look like regular rose petals and ordinary cigarette ash, we’re waiting on the Crime Lab results. Same goes for the glue. As yet we have no idea what they mean.’

‘Do we have a connection between the victims?’

The all-important question. I shook my head. I’d wrung my brain all morning trying to come up with one. Same for a motive. Right now I was looking at the killer’s world through the wrong end of a telescope.

‘What we do know is this killer has cast iron balls. His cooling off period – if you can call it that – is less than a day. Which means if he’s on a spree we could be looking at another victim within the next twenty-four hours.’

‘So who should we be looking for?’

Again, Jamie spoke up: ‘Serial killers are more likely to be white males in their late twenties or early thirties.’ She glanced at me for approval to continue. I nodded. It was textbook stuff, gleaned straight from an Academy tutorial, but we all have to start somewhere.

‘Normally they have jobs that allow them free roam.’ She said. ‘They tend to be sociopaths – which means they show no remorse. They also have a grandiose sense of self. Usually, they’ll have a history of behavioural problems. Maybe even jail time. Some like to brag about their crimes.’

‘And that’s where he could make his first mistake.’ I said refocusing the group. ‘There’s a strong likelihood he may also know his victims. Especially the child’s parents. Once we get her ID, we’ll need to cross-reference acquaintances with Samuels, their work colleagues, what clubs they’re members of, mailing lists they’re buying into, who they’ve upset. As always, the devil is in the details.’ I surveyed my grim-faced audience. Things were about to get messy. ‘Any more questions?’

 13

^{___________________________}

There is something intrinsically evil about a child homicide. It defies logic and it defiles imagination. Just ask the parents.

I left Jamie manning the phone while I hit the streets. Partly because I needed to do something, anything proactive. Mostly to clear the death fog from clouding my brain.

            I got in my car and headed southwest.

‘Want me to tag along?’ Jamie had asked before I’d left.

I’d given it some thought. Jamie had a good eye for detail and a burgeoning curious nature. Someday she’d make a great detective. But right now I needed her at base, on the phone, identifying our ten-year-old Jane Doe.

‘Don’t look too downhearted. It’s important work, Jamie. More important than canvassing for character testimonials.’

‘Okay.’

She didn’t look like she believed me.

Chasing killers was brand new to her. I could see it in her face. She’d spent the last three years of her life sitting through lectures and undergoing basic training. Three weeks out on the street and she’d been bitten by the homicide bug. Wanted more. But I knew that the bite could turn nasty any moment.

‘Did they tell you about the NCIC at the Academy?’

‘It’s The National Crime Information Centre.’

‘Otherwise known as the FBI’s database.’

‘Want me to submit a search request?’

‘Sure. If she’s in the system, Jamie, that’s where we’ll find her.’

‘And if she’s not on the FBI’s books?’

‘Then we start with the schools. Show her photo around. Make a Press statement if need be. Sooner or later somebody is going to miss this child.’

I’d remembered my own daughter of that age wearing pink pyjamas and going to sleepovers at friends’ houses, in the care of other parents. If my own daughter had been abducted on her walk home, how soon would either set of adults have raised the alarm?

‘I’ll get right onto it.’

            ‘Good girl. And when you’re done with the FBI, start compiling employee rolls from every funeral home and mortuary parlour within a fifty mile radius.’

It had occurred to me that our boy could work in the funeral business. Stands to reason, right? The mock interment angle was a strong indicator. It was distinctive. Purposeful. There was a chance he could be a disgruntled funeral home employee. Somebody who wanted to branch out pro bono.

I rolled down the car window and let cool air scream in my ears. The day was bright and breezy. A duck egg sky scratched with condensing vapour trails. I rummaged in the glove box for a CD. Found one at random. Slid it into the player. Life In The Fast Lane by The Eagles blasted the air.

Every police detective has informants. It’s kind of an unpaid outsourcing. Some are pillars of the community: church leaders, social commentators, community workers. Most are hardened criminals: time-served lowlifes, drug dealers, gang members. In both cases, their petty indiscretions are overlooked for the sake of solid intelligence leading to sound arrests.

            I spent the rest of the morning doing house calls.

            Somebody had to know something. Somebody always knew something. There are few secrets on the streets. It all comes down to persuasion and the lesser of two evils.

But I kept coming up against brick walls.

In fact, more blank expressions than at Lehman Brothers on the morning of the crash. Okay, so informants take exception to surprise visits. I can buy that. They prefer you to call ahead, make proper arrangements to meet on neutral turf. English tea at the Waldorf Astoria. That kind of thing. But I like to catch them off-guard. Unprepared. Makes for more spontaneous reactions.

But stony faces were the order of the day.

I was on my way to the next call when my cell phone buzzed:

‘Yes, Fred?’

            ‘We got Union Pacific to check the rail yard security tapes for Sunday evening through Monday morning.’

‘And?’

‘And the cameras had been taken offline.’

            I paused. ‘How’s that happen?’

            ‘They say the cables were cut. Last recorded footage was just after midnight. Followed by mush.’

‘Those cameras have to be forty feet off the ground.’

‘So are the cables.’

‘Who are we dealing with here, Fred? Spider-Man?’

‘Hope not. Catch you later.’

‘Thanks, Fred.’

I stared the engine. Music boomed. I flicked off the CD. Pulled out into traffic. Continued south, deeper into Inglewood.

Serial killers have patterns. It’s by the book. Even the ones who don’t realise it themselves. Psychologists will tell you that the whole of Human behaviour consists of patterns. You just have to know how to read them.

The patterns of killers come in all shapes and sizes:

The way they leave the body.

The place they leave the body.

The social class of those they murder.

Their chosen method of murder.

The calling cards they leave behind.

Every little piece of information that is the same at each crime scene.

It’s their fingerprint.

Patterns help law enforcement draw up a picture of predictability. Kind of like a road map to the killer’s mental location.

And, yes, I was already thinking of The Mortician Murderer as a serial killer. Not because of anything other than the fact I’ve been around the block enough times to recognise a turkey in a chicken coop when I see one. This killer’s style meant something. Understand the message and we’d be halfway to an arrest.

            My cell buzzed again.

I glanced at it.

Then turned the car around and headed back into the city.

Full pelt.

14

^{___________________________}

Dr Milton Perry works out of the Humanities Department of the UCLA, but he also has an office on Hope Street in the heart of the city. Monday through Wednesday he runs a clinic for all matters religion-based. Think of it as a multi-faith arbitration service – in conjunction with the Mayor’s Office. I’d never met Perry, but I knew he promoted himself as the Californian equivalent of Nelson Mandela. A little like a lump of coal with dreams of being a diamond.

            ‘I said absolutely no interruptions.’ Perry boomed as I flung open his office door on the eleventh floor of the glass-and-steel skyscraper and marched inside.

Perry’s office was surprisingly sparse. I say surprising because I’d expected the place to be crammed with religious artefacts. Walls of well-thumbed books spanning the ages. Dusty bibles. That sort of thing. In the very least a signed picture of the Pope. But this was clearly rented space and minimalism ruled.

            Perry’s flustered PA was fluttering on my shoulder like a bird caught in a the wake of a speeding truck. I ignored him. Closed the door between us.

Perry scrambled to his feet.

‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Celebrity Cop.’

I caught a fleeting glimpse of a nervous smile swiftly eclipsed by a confident beam.

‘What an absolute pleasure.’ He gave me the toothy smile a lion might give as it examined its next meal. ‘Detective Gabriel Quinn. In the flesh no less. What an absolute pleasure.’

Dr Milton Perry is in his late sixties. In the right light you could mistake him for an African village chief in a Hugo Boss three-piece. He spread his hands the way priests do when blessing sinners. I didn’t need Perry’s blessing. But I was getting it all the same.

‘What kept you? I’ve been expecting the Celebrity Cop for weeks.’

15

^{___________________________}

I get called Celebrity Cop a lot. You’ll see. My own fault, I guess. The culmination of being in the wrong place at the right time. It also comes with high expectations. Like I’m a superhero or something. When in reality it’s a ball and chain around the neck.

‘Sit, sit,’ he gestured towards a chair.

I stayed standing.

My refusal didn’t faze his apparent glee. He settled behind the oversized desk and clasped big hands together.

‘This is fantastic news. Truly fantastic news. Every parishioner in LA will be relieved to hear LA’s finest is about to apprehend Le Diable.’

            I made a face. One of those malleable ones I’ve got down pat.

‘I think we have our wires crossed.’ I said. ‘Doctor, I’m not here about Le Diable. In fact, Le Diable isn’t even my case. Never has been.’

Big befuddled furrows sprang up on his brow. He sat forward a little, as if he’d misheard and needed clarification. Propped big padded elbows on the big desk.

‘Detective, I have four dead clergymen on my watch. Parishioners cowering in their beds. If you’re not here about Le Diable, why on earth are you here?’

‘This.’

I held up my phone with the picture of the smudged SUV. Tilted it away from the sunlight streaming through the window.

Perry squinted. Grunted. Pulled open a drawer. Took out a pair of designer reading glasses. Snapped them on. He tried to take the phone. I pulled it out of his reach.

‘Is that supposed to be something?’ He said with a smirk. ‘Furthermore, am I supposed to know what that something is?’

‘It’s your Explorer.’ I said. ‘We ran the plate, Doctor. It’s your vehicle. Fleeing a crime scene.’

Perry stared at me like a man learning for the first time he’d been walking around all day with his zipper down.

All at once he didn’t look so pleased to see me.

end of excerpt