by P. A. Brown
“I don’t plan on leaving it to luck. I’ll make my own.”
He stood up and extended his hand to David across the table.
David took it.
“Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Detective.”
“I’ll let you know if anything else occurs to me.”
Bentzen nodded absently. His mind was already on his next step. David saw himself out. He made his way back to his car in the underground parking lot through the corridors of the brand new building that was being touted as state-of-the-art. State-of-theart or not, it still came down to old-fashioned police work more often than not. He had once aspired to join Robbery Homicide, the elite unit that handled all the complex and notorious crimes in the city. But that had fl own out the window when he’d been outed. To the best of his knowledge there were no gay RHD
detectives and he was sure that was just the way they wanted it.
Back outside, he slowed as he approached the newly erected monument to fallen LAPD offi cers. He had been there when it was unveiled. He still remembered the mournful wail of taps as it played in memory of the fallen. At fi rst glance the wall looked solid, only when he got closer did it resolve into over a thousand brass plaques, two hundred and two of them fallen LAPD offi cers, including the most recent—his partner, Jairo Hernandez, who had died at the hands of a gang thug. He found it easily enough this time, unlike the fi rst time he had looked. He L.A. BYTES 157
ran his fi ngers over the engraved metal. Name, rank and day of death. So little to mark a life given in service.
Abruptly he turned away. He didn’t need those memories replaying in his head.
Back at USC he found Chris was still unresponsive, though David noted with some relief that most of the machines he’d been hooked into had been removed. Now all he wore was a single heart monitor attached to his chest. His face and arm had blossomed into a kaleidoscope of surly purples and blues and the skin around his eyes looked soft and puffy. A catheter snaked out from under the thin blanket into a half-fi lled bag.
His eyelids fl uttered briefl y when David called his name, but they didn’t open. David took Chris’s hand in his, being careful not to jar the IV line or press on bruised fl esh.
“We’ll get through this. No matter what.”
§ § § §
David was at his desk when Martinez fi nally strolled in around nine. David looked up from transcribing his latest scratchings into his computer.
“You talk to anybody at Caltech yet?” he asked.
Martinez shook his grizzled head. “You?”
“Got a hold of one of Adam’s professors. He said he’d be available to talk to us at ten.” David pointedly glanced at his Rolex. “Can we make it?”
“Hey, no prob. We even got time to stop for some decent coffee on the way.”
“Let’s do it then.” David saved his report and logged off.
Sliding his jacket off the back of his chair he led the way out of the station. After signing a Crown out they headed east toward California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Caltech was the premier technical school in Southern California. Some argued on the whole west coast. David had never visited it. After grabbing coffee at a Starbucks outside 158 P.A. Brown
of the campus grounds, they went over the directions David’s contact had given them.
“He said to meet him in the Powell-Booth Computing Center.
He’d be there until eleven. His name is Sanjeeb Narayan.” David glanced at his notes again. “He said call him Sanju.”
Caltech was a sprawling campus of yellow brick buildings and clean classical lines. It lay in the shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains; golden with the last brush of autumn colors on the slopes. Martinez found parking and they got directions to the Computing Center.
Sanju was a stout bear of a man, his surprisingly lean face wreathed in a silver white beard, his head similarly adorned with an equally white fringe of hair. His hand clasp was fi erce; the smile on his face didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“How may I help you offi cers?” he asked.
“I understand you were Adam Baruch’s counselor—”
“Yes, yes. That’s true, although I knew him as Adam Scott.”
David remembered how hostile Adam had been when he had been addressed with his mother’s name. What had happened to generate that hostility? He glanced around the public area they were in.
“Is there someplace private we could talk, Mr. Narayan?”
“Yes, yes, of course. But please, call me Sanju.” Sanju gestured for them to precede him down the walk. Music wafted through the arcaded walkway, barely heard over the chatter of dozens of student voices. They passed into the shadow of the Jorgensen Laboratory and entered a corridor.
Their footsteps echoed on the tiled fl oor. Sanju unlocked an unmarked offi ce door and gestured them inside.
“Take a seat, please. I’m sorry, I have no refreshments to offer.” He didn’t sound remorseful.
“That’s okay, sir. We won’t take up much of your time.” David sank into a Louis Quatorze chair he seriously doubted was real, L.A. BYTES 159
and glanced quickly at Martinez. “And how long have you been counseling Mr. Scott?” David asked.
“Adam enrolled nearly two years ago. His credentials, including letters of recommendation and test scores, were impeccable,”
Sanju said. “As you may or may not know, students are admitted only with the Ph.D. as their degree objective and Adam met that criterion without issue. In fact, he took a subject test in his chosen subject and scored exceptionally high, as I recall.”
“But...?” David spoke up when it became clear Sanju was stalling. “Did his grades slip?”
Sanju pressed his already thin lips together. They disappeared behind his facial hair. “We all had extremely high hopes for Adam. The boy was brilliant in a way that far surpassed nearly all our students.”
David knew that was saying a lot. Caltech was renowned for turning out brilliant, innovative graduates. So what had gone wrong with Adam? And what, if anything, did it have to do with his parents’ deaths?
“Sir? Is there any chance we could speak with Adam? If he’s in a class, we could wait—”
“I’m sorry, but that will be quite impossible.”
“We really won’t take long. If you like, we can arrange to meet him after classes—”
“You misunderstand. He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
Sanju picked a pewter seal off his desk and stared down at the delicate embossing. “He...left the school at the end of September.”
David dropped his indolence and sat up. “He quit?”
Sanju’s gaze darted left, his mouth puckered up like he had just bit into a lemon. He nodded.
Liar. Martinez must have seen it too. “He quit? Or was he asked to leave?”
160 P.A. Brown
“You have to understand,” Sanju said. “We accept a lot of idiosyncrasies in our students. Brilliants minds are often...
different than the rest of us. But even the most brilliant mind must have some discipline...”
“What did he do, Mr. Narayan?”
“He broke into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thursday, 10:50 am, Caltech, California Boulevard, Pasadena
“What do you mean, he broke into JPL?”
“He hacked one of the JPL servers and vandalized a researcher’s web page.”
“Was he protesting the site?” David couldn’t imagine going to all that trouble unless the guy had some kind of political agenda.
Sanju shook his white head. “I didn’t actually see the result, but as I understood it, it was a simple defacement. Some sort of childish cartoon. Nothing that could be construed as controversial or political. At least, not then.”
David’s hand froze over his notebook. “Not then? He did something controversial later?”
Sanju rubbed the knuckles of
his fi st over his bearded chin.
“I suppose it could be construed as such. At the very least it was in bad taste. I’m sure it played a major factor in his being asked to leave.”
“What was it, Professor?”
“When Adam was called before the Student Conduct Committee he showed up wearing a T-shirt that was highly objectionable.”
“In what way?” David asked.
When Sanju hesitated Martinez snapped, “Come on, Professor.
We can handle it. What did the shirt say?”
“Jew Fascists,” Sanju said. His face reddened. “The words were written over the image of a pig being sexually, ah...mounted by a man...”
It was David’s turn to frown. “Odd behavior for a Jewish man.”
162 P.A. Brown
“Jewish? Where did you get the idea Adam was Jewish?”
“From a bad source, I guess,” Martinez muttered. “If he wasn’t Jewish—”
“His father was Iranian. An expatriate.”
“He’s Islamic?” David said.
“Statistically it’s likely he was Islamic, but there are a number of Christian Iranians.”
“Was any of this reported?” David asked.
“Adam seemed sincerely puzzled as to the uproar. He thought it was a lark.”
“You didn’t agree?”
“I was more concerned with his lack of remorse. He simply didn’t comprehend that what he had done was wrong.” Sanju seemed to be warming to his topic. “But was he amoral or just another youth railing against intellectual property rights? I don’t know. But the decision was made higher up that he be asked to leave.”
“What was his demeanor when he was asked to leave?”
Sometimes traumas triggered outbursts of rage that could lead to other, more violent attacks.
“He was upset. He didn’t understand it. I guess he thought an apology was all he needed.”
David nodded. They were going to have to have another talk with Adam Baruch, nee Scott. “Do you have an address on him?”
David wasn’t surprised to fi nd it was Nancy Scott’s Carillon Street address.
David stood. “Thank you, Professor Narayan. If you should think of anything else...” He handed Sanju his business card.
“Please, don’t hesitate to call.”
Sanju followed them to the door and as soon as they were through it, he locked it behind them. David looked back.
L.A. BYTES 163
“Guess they don’t subscribe to the open door policy here,”
Martinez said. “I think you got to him there, mijo.”
“Think so?” David sighed and rubbed his aching ribs. “It doesn’t get us any closer to fi nding him, does it? You think it’s worth going after that warrant?”
“Can’t hurt. It may produce something.”
“The address Adam gave was North Hollywood. Why don’t we go and talk with some of the tenants? Maybe somebody saw something we can use.”
“Sounds good. Let’s grab lunch, then head out. If we get there early enough we may catch folks coming home for the day.”
By mutual agreement they decided to leave the vicinity of the campus before they looked for a place to eat. Somehow the prospect of being surrounded by a bunch of boisterous students seemed too exhausting. They grabbed a sandwich at the fi rst greasy spoon they spotted after exiting the Hollywood Freeway in North Hollywood.
The apartment on Vantage was a two story walk-up with pink stucco siding and tattered blue awnings that swayed in the afternoon breeze. A couple of half-dead palms and some languishing geraniums fl anked the entrance.
David pulled the unmarked car into a visitor’s space. They strode up the path toward the main entrance and buzzed the manager. Huddled in the wilting fronds of the dying palm, a fl ock of starlings complained.
The apartment manager was a spider-limbed African-American man. He immediately recognized Martinez.
“You back? Thought you were all fi nished here.”
“Got some follow-up questions the boss wants answers to,”
Martinez said. “You know how it goes when the man upstairs gets involved.”
“What kinda questions?”
“Adam Scott, the tenant from 1A,” David said. “What can you tell us about him, Mr....?”
164 P.A. Brown
“Wayne Briscoe.”
Briscoe led them back into his apartment, which smelled of cigarette smoke and the slight sulfurous odor of boiled eggs.
All the drapes were pulled shut and the room was encased in shadows. A twenty-one inch TV on a hand-made stand was showing a laugh track fi lled sitcom. Beside the TV, a two-drawer fi ling cabinet was half open, stuffed to overfl owing with fi les and folders.
Briscoe jerked open the top drawer and began rifl ing through the contents. After a couple of minutes he pulled out a thin purple folder.
“This is what Adam fi lled out.” Briscoe reached one long arm across the fi ling cabinet and snagged a pack of Marlboros. He extracted one and lit it with a gold-plated lighter. “Well, that and his deposit.” He grinned, revealing a gap between his yellowed front teeth.
David took the folder and fl ipped it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper. Adam had fi lled out the various fi elds in stiff block letters: name, again Adam Scott; previous address his mother’s. David noticed a space for type of car and license plate number. Both were blank.
“Adam didn’t have a car?”
Briscoe slipped on a pair of reading glasses and looked where David pointed. “Hmm, didn’t notice that. He should have fi lled it out...” He blew a stream of smoke past David’s ear. “Ah, I remember now. He got the car later. He was supposed to register it, guess neither one of us remembered.”
“Can you remember what kind of car it was?” David asked.
“It was a green Honda,” Briscoe said. “An Accord, a ninety-six.
I know that ‘cause my ex-wife had one, only she got hers brand new, out of our divorce settlement. Did I get a new car? Hell, no, I’m still driving that piece of shit she stuck me with.” He sucked on his cigarette. “Man, I hate Fords worse than anything.”
David made a moue of sympathy, like he really cared about the guy’s car problems. “Get a license plate?”
L.A. BYTES 165
Briscoe looked at him as though to say “yeah, right.” He lit another cigarette off the fi rst one.
“He a good tenant?” Martinez asked.
“Never late with the rent. Didn’t party as far as I could tell.
Quiet. Never said boo to anybody.” He grinned, showing the gap in his teeth. “Hey, he a serial killer? Isn’t that what they always say—quiet, shy, barely knew he was there? Imagine living next door to a serial killer.”
Some people watched way too much crime TV. “No sir, we just want to talk to him,” David said. He could tell the guy didn’t believe him. “He ever mention his family? Mother, father?”
“No.” Briscoe tipped his head toward the folder David still held. “Except for what he put in there he never told me nothing.”
David studied the form more closely. “Do you have a copy of this?”
“You want it? It’s yours. One less thing I gotta fi nd space for.”
David glanced at Martinez and nodded. He drew out a business card and passed it over to Briscoe. “If you think of anything else, please call.”
“Sure. Anything in particular you looking for?”
“Just tell us anything that comes to you,” Martinez said as they rose to leave. “We’ll sort it out.”
David slipped the folder over to Martinez as he got in the car.
“Anything interesting?”
“Social Security number. Let’s see what that gets us.”
§ § § §
The SSN got them a single employer and a bank. “Citibank,”
David said, peering at his computer screen. They’d have to get a fi nancial warrant to see what was in it. He smoothed his fi ngers 166 P.A. Brown
“Lots of students work slog jobs until they move on to bigger and better,” Martinez said. He perched on David’s desk, studying the screen over his shoulders.
“Except Adam seems to be moving down, not up.”
“We don’t have enough to get any of those records subpoenaed.
We need more.”
“Let’s go talk to his ex-boss.” David stood up. “Find out why he’s not slinging burgers anymore.”
“Maybe he insulted a customer this time, instead of a bunch of college liberals. Hold on, let me make a call.” Martinez strolled to his desk and scooped his phone up. Minutes later he rejoined David. “We know he had a car. DMV’s got to have some kind of record on him. Since we don’t know what name he’s going under, we’ll look for all ninety-six Honda Accords under the name Adam. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
David had visions of sorting through that particular list. “And maybe we’ll just go blind.”
“Hey, bed time reading material. Guaranteed to put an end to insomnia.”
“Put you in a coma is more like it,” David said.
The Burger House in question was in the general direction of the hospital. He wanted to get in to see Chris before visiting hours were over.
“Let’s take our own cars, that way we can split up later.”
“Maybe we can grab a burger while we’re there.” Martinez rubbed his paunch. “Muero de hambre.”
David shook his head. Like there was ever a time Martinez wasn’t starving. How he put it away without piling on the weight was a mystery David never could solve. Martinez had an easy answer.
“Good genes.” He’d always pat his gut. “And a clean conscience.”
L.A. BYTES 167
There was a line at the Burger House counter. The air was heavy with the smell of hot oil, onions and cooking meat. David felt as though a thick coating of grease settled over him, coating his skin.
Martinez studied the overhead menu like he was discovering the true meaning of manna. He ordered two double cheeseburgers and onion rings. David was glad they weren’t traveling together.
When his turn came, David picked up a Caesar salad. Martinez rolled his eyes. He wove his way through the waiting crowd to fi nd them a seat.
