by P. A. Brown
“You believe this guy? You think if we printed this place we’d fi nd anything?” Martinez muttered when David emerged from the bathroom followed by the cat. “Can’t believe he owns a cat.”
David pulled the top blanket off the bed and shook it out.
He followed with the sheets and fl ipped the mattress up to peer underneath it. In the shadows a darker square. A small box.
“Hello, what do we have here?” Martinez stooped down to grab the fl attened box. He fl ipped it over in his hand. “Chocolates?”
David eased the mattress back down. He studied the gold-leaf covered box inside and out. There were no chocolates left, L.A. BYTES 191
but there were half a dozen of the dark wraps matching the ones David had recovered at Nancy Scott’s place.
“Looks like Mr. Clean wanted a souvenir,” Martinez said.
“Let’s get them tested before we jump the gun here. We don’t have him yet.”
He pulled the nightstand drawer open. The deep drawer was fi lled with bills and receipts. A quick glance at the bottom ones showed they went back a couple of years. Since he’d been on his own? The guy was a compulsive saver. Good for him.
David sifted through the paper. A receipt for something called the Sweetheart Special from Chocolate Delights caught his eye. It was dated less than two weeks before Nancy Scott’s death.
If they could trace that box under the mattress to the chocolate Lopez had found in Scott’s body, they had Adam nailed.
He showed the receipt to Martinez. “Shows premeditation.”
He pulled out a ticket stub. Holding it up into the dim light that poured through the open window, he realized it was a parking ticket. It was dated Halloween.
“He doesn’t know West Hollywood, so he parks in the wrong place, gets a ticket. In the meantime he’s following Chris and me.”
“You really think he tried to run you over?” Martinez asked.
“Seems a little in your face for a guy like that.”
He had a point. Poisoners were usually a secretive, weasely lot.
“Most of them are women, too,” David pointed out. “They don’t all follow the pattern. I think this guy’s smart—look at his record at Caltech for proof of that—and I think he’s adaptable. I guess he considered me more of a threat than I fi gured.”
“So he follows you to West Hollywood and waits for a chance to do some major damage?” Martinez sounded skeptical. David didn’t blame him. Even to him it sounded far-fetched. Paranoid.
He shrugged and fl ipped the papers into an evidence box; they’d sort through them later. The kitten sat in his lap and batted at each 192 P.A. Brown
piece of paper. It wasn’t Visa receipts David wanted. He let his gaze roam over the small apartment. There was nothing in it that spoke of Adam’s hatred for his mother or of a father betrayed.
He got up and moved through the tiny apartment again, letting his cop eyes roam. He folded back a closet door. It held a single dark gray suit, two white shirts and a denim jacket. It smelled of cedar and mothballs. On the top shelf was a large book. He pulled it down and stared at the red and gold engraved cover.
The words The Qur’an were highlighted in gold and black.
He showed it to Martinez. “So he is Muslim.” He fl ipped through several pages. “English and something I’m guessing is Arabic.”
He put the book back. It wasn’t part of the warrant and couldn’t be touched.
Neither could the computer he spotted on a rollout cart tucked into the far corner of the closet. Why would anyone hide something like that in a closet? There wasn’t even a monitor, though there was a blue network cable plugged into a small blinking box. Chris had something like that. He used it to network his computers.
David’s frustration mounted as he realized they couldn’t touch it.
“We need to revise our warrant,” he muttered.
“On what grounds?” Martinez came to stand beside him.
“They’re never gonna let that thing in, not based on what we’ve got.”
Martinez was right, except... “What if he used it to research how to poison her? Maybe he even talked it over with someone in one of those chat rooms. His generation, they live on the Internet.”
His partner nodded. “That might fl y.”
“Let’s fi nish up here,” David said. “See if there’s anything else we want on the amended warrant. Then let’s go see if we can fi nd somebody who agrees.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sunday, 10:55 am, USC County General, State Street, Los Angeles Des bounced into the room the next morning, bringing an energy that left Chris exhausted.
Chris knew exactly when Des saw the damage to his face. His friend stiffened and pulled back, briefl y averting his eyes. His dark face went gray. Chris had known it would be hard for Des to see him like this. It triggered too many horrifi c memories of his own assault.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”
Chris captured his hand. “I’m okay, Des. They’re just bruises.”
Des recovered quickly. He waved a perfect French manicured hand at him and deliberately went all camp. “You are absolutely beastly not calling me sooner. What were you thinking?”
Chris brought Des’s hand to his face. His dark fi ngers were cool against Chris’s still tender skin. “A little ice, a cucumber masque and I’m good as new. So tell me, how’s bad boy Trevor these days?”
“Still bad.” Des managed a weak smile. “He wanted to come, but I needed to see you alone.”
At one point Chris had wanted to talk to Des about Trevor, about whether this was a good thing. He didn’t want to see Des hurt again. But this wasn’t the time. Maybe it never would be.
Instead he said, “I hope I’m not going to have to fend off a jealous Trevor now. I don’t think I’m quite up to that.”
Des’s laughter this time was more spirited. “Oh, nothing like a little bit of the green-eyed monster to bring out the best in a man. Trevor will be just fi ne.”
194 P.A. Brown
With that Des became more businesslike. He opened the bag and handed Chris a bundle of magazines and toiletries. Chris glanced at the latest issues of The Advocate and Out and grinned.
Des was always trying to politicize him. So far he had resisted, but Des was nothing if not stubborn.
He stared at the rest of the stuff and burst out laughing.
Along with the miniature bottle of mouthwash, toothpaste, a new toothbrush and a comb, Des had included a small compact, face cleanser, a tube of cover-up, tweezers and a bottle of Aramis. He laughed harder when he held up the avocado masque.
“Great minds.”
“I fi gured David would bring your razor later but you need a toothbrush now,” Des said, fussing over the gifts like they were tiny treasures. “And I know how important it is to look your best after this kind of thing.”
Chris threw his bandaged arms around Des’s slim shoulders.
He awkwardly patted his best friend’s back, feeling hot tears track down his neck.
“Come on, hon, it’s not as bad as that. It looks worse than it is.”
“You scared me so much.” Then he burst into tears. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me. What a silly idea.” Chris squeezed his arm and pressed his mouth against Des’s neck, tasting the salt of his tears. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You really are a sweetheart.”
“Of course I am.” Des sat up and hastily wiped his face. “All the queens in Beverly Hills say so.”
“Oh, they say it in more places than that.” Chris laughed at the pleased expression on Des’s fi ne-boned face. “You’re a legend around town.”
“Now you’re being silly.” Des glanced at his watch and sighed.
“I wish I could stay but I’ve got a new shipment of Kenneth Coles coming in. If I’m not there, heaven knows where Clive will L.A. BYTES 195
put everything. The boy has no common sense. I
f he wasn’t such a cutie I’d dump his pretty little ass tomorrow.”
“You just know all your butch customers love him.”
Des sniffed. “I’m going to have a talk with David after this is all over. Someone needs to put a leash on you.”
“He might like that more than you think.” Chris raised his bed. “Listen, you won’t get me a phone, fi ne, I can live with that. But can you lend me twenty? David won’t be back till late tomorrow and I can’t stomach the crap they try to serve me in here. They tell me I’ll be able to get up tomorrow, so I can hit the cafeteria.”
“Sure, hon. I can do that.”
Chris shoved the bill Des dug out of his wallet and tucked it into his bedside drawer. Des leaned over and kissed him. He smoothed his hand over Chris’s beard stubbled face.
“You take care, hon. I love you. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Like I could.”
Five minutes after Des left, Chris was on the phone again.
The delivery boy who dropped off the Blackberry two hours later was all smiles at the twenty Chris slipped him. He was only too happy to plug the device in.
Sunday, 2:50 pm, N. Vermont Avenue, East Hollywood David and Martinez got their amended warrant and returned to Adam’s apartment with one of the station techs and a woman from animal control. David helped her secure the kitten, and slipped her his card before she left, “If the cat’s not claimed, give me a call.” She nodded and left.
This time they did a full search and left with several computer disks and burned CDs as well as the hardware.
David was fi nishing up when he realized Martinez was no longer in the apartment. He found him on the fi re escape 196 P.A. Brown
crouched over a battered steel box. A mist fell, a gray pall hung low over the city; the winter rains had started early.
Martinez looked up. “You better see this.”
He handed David a sheaf of slick photo paper. David remembered seeing a stack of the same paper beside the printer that had also been in the closet. He took the pictures gingerly.
The fi rst image was clearly taken with a telephoto lens at night and it was hard to make out who was in it. The next picture cleared up their identity. It was Chris and him leaving Santo Coyote, a restaurant on Melrose. He tried to remember the last time they had been there. Wasn’t it before this mess started? It had been a celebration of Chris’s latest contract with Ste. Anne’s. It had only been for a week, but Chris thought it would be extended.
David’s fl esh felt numb as he leafed through the rest of the pictures. As far as he could tell they were all taken that same night, but it was the last one that sent a bolt of fear through him.
It showed the two of them outside the door to their Silver Lake home. Chris was looking up at him with that look—the one that always meant the evening was going to end very soon in bed. In fact he seemed to recall they hadn’t even made it past the living room that night. It was a very private look and David hated to know that someone was watching that moment.
“He must have parked across the street,” he managed to say.
“He was right there.”
Martinez reached for the pictures before David could drop them, but David wouldn’t release them. As he jerked them back, several slips of fl imsy paper fell out and fl uttered to the wet balcony. He stooped down to grab them.
He stared at them, at fi rst puzzled, then with a knot of fear growing in his gut. The fi rst page was a tax assessor’s map of Chris and his home on Cove Avenue. There was a full fl oor plan and the dimensions of the house Chris had inherited from his grandmother years before.
L.A. BYTES 197
With stiff fi ngers he fl ipped out the next pages. The fi rst was his birth certifi cate, the one without a father listed. The second one was Chris’s.
The fi nal page was the AKC registration the breeder had given them for Sergeant.
Martinez awkwardly patted his partner’s shoulder. David brushed his hand off. “He’s stalking us.” He held the papers up.
“This is just to show himself what he can do.”
“Fucking power trip,” Martinez said. “We’re onto the scumbag now. He won’t get anywhere near you or Chris.”
David slapped the papers and photos against the palm of his hand. “But what was he doing watching us then? This is before we caught the Scott squeal. He had no way to know I’d be put on that case—even if you assume he’d already planned to kill her then!”
“So what are you thinking?”
“I don’t know.” David brushed droplets of rain off his shaggy head and rubbed his face wearily. “But there’s something else going on here. I just don’t know what yet.”
§ § § §
Once they were satisfi ed there was nothing else in the apartment they could use to bolster their growing case, they returned to the station. David wanted to talk to the technician who had taken in Adam’s computer.
He headed to the overcrowded room that had been given over to the techies when computers fi rst started making inroads into police work.
A portly Anglo, who barely looked eighteen, hunched over the equipment from Adam’s apartment. His name tag said Brad Dortlander. He glanced up at David’s approach.
“This yours?”
“Find anything interesting?”
“Defi ne interesting.”
198 P.A. Brown
David wished he had Chris there. He might have had more luck communicating with this guy.
“The guy who owned this may have killed his mother,” David said. “He also tried to kill... a cop.” David almost said “me,” but decided to keep it from seeming personal. “You should probably be aware the guy’s supposed to be some kind of computer genius.
So I don’t know what you can expect.”
Brad’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah?” He tried to sound casual, but he’d never make it in Hollywood. “Think it might be booby-trapped?”
David looked askance at the seemingly innocuous machine on Brad’s desk. “Booby-trapped? What does that mean?”
“Oh, nothing like you’re thinking. It’s not going to blow up or anything.” Brad snorted and David almost expected milk to shoot out of his nose. “Booby-trapping is an automatically executed shell command that runs whenever a suspicious connection attempt is made to the system. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing will trigger a self-destruct command and wipe the hard drive before they know what hit them.”
“Anything you can do to counter it?”
“I’ll clone it onto one of our own systems, then generate another SUID. Don’t worry, sir. If there’s something on there, I’ll get it off, without touching or altering the original fi les.”
David got that Dortlander would keep the fi les safe in case of a trial. Other than that he didn’t have a clue what Dortlander was saying, and he wasn’t about to ask for a translation.
Instead he nodded sagely. “Good. Ah, carry on, then. You’ll let me know as soon as you fi nd something?”
“What? Oh sure.” But David could tell Dortlander was already a thousand miles away. Probably buried deep inside the silicon computer chips or copper wires, the same place Chris went at times.
David left him to his incomprehensible activities and rejoined Martinez in a world he was far more comfortable with.
L.A. BYTES 199
Martinez looked smug as he sat with his phone tucked under his chin. He put the phone down when David came in.
“What did you fi nd?” David asked.
“Our Adam was born in Florida. Jacksonville to be exact.
Only the name is Adnan Behnia Baruq,” Martinez said. “Mother’s name on the birth certifi cate is Nancy Ellen Baruq, nee Scott. His father is Yousef Baruq.”
“And where is Yousef now?”
“Still looking.”
David sat down and swiveled his chair around to face Martinez.
“So Nancy Scott marries Yousef, presumably converts to Islam and they have a son, Adam. Or Adnan.”<
br />
“Sounds about right.”
“So what happens? How do Nancy and Adnan end up in California with Nancy a devout, church-going Catholic?”
“I’m guessing however it happened, Adnan wasn’t happy about the change.”
“Did his father share that sentiment?” David wondered. He pulled a pen out of the chipped mug on his desk and began rhythmically tapping it against his knee. “Something’s not adding up here.”
“Gotta be rough on a guy, losing his wife and kid and then she goes and twists the knife by dumping on his religion, too.”
“Why don’t you start with the records offi ces in Florida? I’ll start looking around here.” David scribbled something on a scrap of paper. “Yousef? How do you spell that?”
Sunday, 7:45 pm, USC County General, State Street, Los Angeles Chris awoke with a start and swore when he saw the darkness pressing against the barred window of his room. He’d fallen asleep again.
200 P.A. Brown
When he tried to move it was as though every muscle in his body chose that precise moment to seize up. He groaned.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
His doctor’s dry voice was the last thing he wanted to hear. But there she was, leaning over him. He saw her wandering gaze fl ick toward the bedside table where he had stashed the Blackberry and the morphine tablets he had stopped taking.
“Christopher, you really have to understand what your body is going through.”
“How’s that, doc?” Chris was in no mood for Finder’s word games. He just wished she’d go away so he could rest his eyes for a couple of minutes. Then he could get ready for what he had to do.
“More than anything your body needs rest. Complete, uninterrupted rest.”
Abruptly she reached over and pulled the drawer open.
