L.A. Bytes

by P. A. Brown

or sped up if the car was ahead of him. He cruised by The Nosh Pit and snagged a parking spot that was just being vacated by a Subaru.

  Ramsey looked up when he entered and the look that fl ashed across his face told David he’d hit the jackpot. The fl amboyant little queen who served drinks and some heavy duty fl irtation seemed disappointed when David said he didn’t want anything.

  David never took his eyes off Ramsey.

  “When was he here?”

  He thought Ramsey was going to lie, then he shrugged. “You just missed him. Maybe fi ve minutes ago.”

  “He say where he was going?”

  “He was talking on the phone with someone. Heard him say Santa Clarita. He left here right after that.” Ramsey folded his arms over his chest. “He told me not to tell you any of this.”

  Ramsey was more Chris’s friend than his. David was never sure if Ramsey had forgiven him for the heavy-handed way he had conducted his investigation into the Carpet Killer. “So why did you?”

  “Chris is doing something even he knows isn’t right. If he’s in trouble I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.”

  David held his hand out over the bar. Ramsey took it.

  “Thanks,” David said.

  “Hey, try to keep the guy out of trouble. He’s such a magnet for it.”

  Shaking his head at the truth of that, David hurried back to his car. Heading north towards the I5 he zigzagged through traffi c.

  Taillights fl ared along the street as traffi c ebbed and fl owed.

  David tailgated a Saturn for a while, until he was able to slip past it and onto the north bound ramp.

  L.A. BYTES 239

  The freeway was stop and go traffi c. An hour later David spotted a kiwi green Escape and was able to get close enough to read the plate. It was Chris’s car. Then the Escape’s tail lights fl ared and the vehicle darted across two lanes of traffi c amid a blare of horns, disappearing down the McBean Parkway exit into Santa Clarita. Barely glancing at the traffi c behind him David followed.

  They passed the California Institute of Arts and David grew even more confused. They didn’t know anyone out here. It was classic middleclass suburbia, something Chris detested. Chris’s parents lived in Chatsworth and Chris rarely visited them, though as far as David had seen from the two times he had gone with Chris to see them, they were trying hard to accept Chris and his lifestyle. Chris’s parents had reached out to them when he and Chris married, something David’s parents had not done.

  David enjoyed his visits to Chatsworth. He wished he could take Chris to visit his family, but his mother and stepfather would never look on Chris as anything other than an aberration in their son’s life. David took Chris home to New Hampshire once. His mother had been cold and disdainful of both Chris and her only son. The trip had been cut short and David never suggested they go again, though he knew Chris wondered why. Chris thought their marriage would change his mother’s mind, when David knew nothing would.

  David followed Chris past streets with names like Singing Hills Drive and Via Jacara. David nearly lost him at a stoplight, impatiently waiting for it to change while he watched the Escape disappear down Del Monte Drive.

  The light changed and David squealed around the corner. His stomach rolled over when he realized the Escape had vanished.

  He slowed to a crawl, peering anxiously down side streets, looking for the car.

  He was about to give up and call LASD at the Magic Mountain substation when he spotted the car in front of a Spanish style adobe brick house. There were several other cars and vans parked up and down the short crescent.

  240 P.A. Brown

  There was no sign of Chris when David pulled the Chevy to the curb two cars down from the empty Escape and turned his lights off. The Spanish-style house was dark, except for a single incandescent bulb hanging above the front door.

  David settled in behind the wheel, hunching down in the seat so he would be less obvious. His gaze moved restlessly around the darkened property, searching for movement. He knew he should call the Sheriffs. They wouldn’t appreciate him poaching on their turf, but exactly what would he tell them? His husband was sneaking around someone’s house and no, he didn’t know why?

  He caught movement near a fi ve-foot toyon bush on the south side. A fi gure slipped through the shadows, moving toward the rear of the house. David’s view was partially screened by a large fan palm. The nearby chirps of crickets didn’t drown out the sonorous hum of traffi c on McBean Parkway.

  He climbed out of the car. Was Chris looking for a back door?

  Was he trying to get inside? But why? David wished he could call in the address and fi nd who owned the place, but he had no legitimate reason to make such a call.

  His only hope was to catch Chris before he got inside and did something foolish.

  No light from the street reached this far. He stepped carefully, doing his best to avoid making noise. Chris had vanished around the corner of the house.

  David followed. Along the back wall an inky pit of blackness stained the already dark house. Belatedly David realized it was an open door.

  Frowning, he stepped onto the stone patio. The crickets fell silent.

  “Chris?” he called softly. “Are you there? Chris—”

  The smell washed over him moments before the shadow suddenly detached from the front of the toyon bush. Urine and unwashed fl esh. And gasoline. There was a rushing sound. David spun around, instinct kicking in too late. He reached for his L.A. BYTES 241

  Smith & Wesson. A blow caught him upside the head, throwing him backward. He lurched to his knees; light fl ared behind his eyes.

  He caught a glimpse of the same hot dark eyes he had last seen at the homeless shelter and too late he realized who it was.

  “Adnan,” he whispered. His fi ngers closed over the butt of his gun, yanking it out as Adnan again swung whatever he had hit him with the fi rst time. David’s head ricocheted off stone and the light in his head exploded into a brilliant kaleidoscope of pain, then nothing.

  Tuesday, 9:40 pm, Via Raza, Santa Clarita When he saw the dark house, Chris wondered if after everything Terry had been pulling his leg.

  There was no doorbell. He pounded on the front door and stepped back in alarm when it opened.

  He leaned forward and stuck his head inside. “Terry? Hey, it’s Chris. You there?”

  Silence. Then a rustling sound. Footsteps echoed across hard tile, followed by the clank of something metallic.

  “Terry?”

  The sound came again. Chris shoved the door open and stepped inside. He fumbled his way down the hall until he found a light switch and fl ipped it on.

  Terry lay propped against the foyer wall. His short hair was drenched in blood. The wall behind him was patterned with gore.

  Down the hall, half in and half out of another room lay a second body. All he could see were legs, but he knew it was a woman.

  Terry’s wife, Carol? The woman Chris had only met once, years ago. He couldn’t see any blood. He knew she was dead without seeing more. His stomach lurched. He had to dig his teeth into his lips to keep from vomiting.

  242 P.A. Brown

  “Terry!” He dropped to his knees, ignoring the blood soaking into his jeans. He fumbled with numb fi ngers along Terry’s throat; there was no pulse.

  Chris scrambled to his feet and backed away from the body.

  The police. He had to call the police. No, he had to call David.

  He grabbed his Blackberry.

  An odd popping sound distracted him while he tried to key in David’s number with shaking fi ngers. He glanced down the hall toward the back of the dark house, trying to ignore the body of Terry’s wife. The noise sounded familiar. He went back to his Blackberry, punching in numbers. He’d deal with strange noises later, after he had called David—

  The popping, crackling sound grew. All the hairs on his body stood up as he fi nally recognized it. Fire. Yellow-orange light fl ickered off the fl oor tiles and the acr
id smell of smoke fi lled his nostrils, along with another, equally familiar smell. Gasoline.

  He stared down at Terry’s body. He had to get out of here. But he couldn’t leave them to burn. He bent down, hooked his arms under Terry’s shoulders and yanked him toward the door. For the fi rst time he understood the expression “dead weight.” Chris would have sworn Terry hadn’t weighed more than a hundred and eighty, soaking wet, but right now he felt like he was trying to drag around a half a ton. He pulled the body around to face the door, but couldn’t get it any further.

  Gasping for breath he leaned against the wall and stared down at the body helplessly. His hands were covered in gore. His stomach fl ipped over again.

  Black smoke billowed down the hall, the bitter odor of burning wood, plastic and god knew what else. The gasoline smell grew stronger.

  Chris breathed shallowly as he tried one more time to pull Terry toward the front of the house. Pain stabbed through his back and he straightened with a gasp. No way. He wasn’t going to be able to get Terry out.

  L.A. BYTES 243

  Chris raced for the door and yanked it open. Damp, oxygen-rich air poured into the house. Chris took a deep breath then let it out with a cry. The fi re had been as rejuvenated as he was by the blast of fresh air.

  The crackling sound became a roar. Fire leaped up the doorframe and curled seductively around a wall light, which exploded into glittering shards of frosted glass.

  Chris had never realized fi re spread so fast. He barely leaped through the front door when the fl ames burst out behind him.

  He smelled burning denim and lurched onto the lawn, where he hastily patted several embers off his jeans. He could feel the pinpricks of heat against his bare skin. His face was covered with greasy sweat and his T-shirt clung to him. Even the cooling night air did not chill his overheated fl esh.

  He braced his hands on his knees. His chest ached and his breathing was short and labored. He closed his eyes and tried to take deep, cleansing breaths, but each gasp hurt more than the last.

  In the distance he heard the rising wail of sirens. One of the neighbors must have called 911. The fi re trucks would arrive soon. The cops wouldn’t be far behind.

  He rolled his head sideways, wondering if he dared try to move.

  Pain momentarily forgotten, he stared at the ‘56 Chevy Two-Tone sport coupe parked at the curb. It couldn’t be David’s car.

  David was at work. David was in Los Angeles. He didn’t even know Terry, so there was no way he’d know where this place was or that Chris was coming here.

  Chris pushed himself upright. On leaden feet he staggered across the lawn and braced himself against the passenger side door, ignoring the smear of blood he left. He immediately spotted David’s Ray Bans and the leather steering-wheel cover David had only recently installed.

  Chris’s knees buckled and he had to grab the door handle to keep from collapsing. What was David doing here? In growing 244 P.A. Brown

  horror Chris turned toward Terry’s house just in time to see the front of the roof collapse in a shower of sparks and fl ame. A wave of heat rolled across the lawn, a fan palm beside the house curled away from the heat and burst into fl ames.

  “No!” Chris lunged away from the car. A fi re truck careened around the corner, followed closely by a second.

  Chris’s feet skidded on the wet grass. The front door was ablaze; he couldn’t get in that way. Instead he circled the house looking for another way in. A window, a door. Anything.

  Had David gone in after him? Or was he tracking Terry?

  David kept his business to himself. If he did develop a lead on Terry, he wouldn’t tell Chris. But what were the odds of him coming after Terry at the same time Chris was responding to Terry’s phone call? Or had the call from Terry come because he knew he was a suspect? Was that why he called Chris? Because he knew David was closing in on him?

  It still didn’t explain who killed Terry. Or why.

  Above the roar of the fl ames he could hear voices. Footsteps pounded after him and a bulky man in full gear rounded the burning palm and shouted. Chris ignored him.

  His foot connected with something on the ground. It skidded away. Puzzled, he looked at what he had kicked. It was some kind of fl at dark material, which did not refl ect the nearby fi re.

  He knew what it was even before he snatched it up. He blinked.

  It was a gun. He traced the outline of the rectangular barrel and raised writing, knowing even without being able to see it what it said. Smith & Wesson .40. It was David’s gun. The one he had bought himself to replace his police issue Beretta. It cost him a small fortune, but he claimed the Smith & Wesson was a better weapon.

  Chris raised his head and stared blindly at the burning building.

  The door was a hole into hell. It was like staring down the maw of a dragon. He stepped toward it.

  L.A. BYTES 245

  A voice shouted. Chris spun around and found himself staring into the alarmed face of a fi re fi ghter.

  “Sir, you can’t be here—”

  “Drop the weapon!”

  Chris twisted away from the fi rst man only to fi nd himself staring down the barrel of another gun. The deputy holding it didn’t look alarmed. She looked grim.

  “Drop it, clown.”

  Chris did as he was told.

  “On your stomach,” the deputy said. “Hands laced behind your head.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “Now!”

  Chris dropped to his knees. The grass felt slimy and cold under the skin of his face. Rough hands grabbed his arms and yanked them behind his back. Hard metal cuffs snicked around his wrists.

  “David’s in there!”

  The deputy dragged him to his feet. She looked even grimmer.

  “You telling me there’s somebody in the house?”

  “No—yes, Terry, but that’s not who I mean. And his wife.

  David’s in there!” Chris yelled when his arms were wrenched behind him. “David’s a cop!”

  Something crashed inside the house. A gust of superheated air washed over them. Chris ducked away from it, only to be jerked back. His shoulders ached and his head swam.

  “That’s his gun. You have to fi nd him—”

  Under the watchful gaze of the fi re fi ghter, the deputy hauled Chris to his feet and shoved him toward the street. An ambulance had joined the fi re trucks and police cars. A kaleidoscope of multi-colored lights competed with the glow from the fi re. With half the population of Santa Clarita watching, the deputy pushed Chris into the back of the black and white idling at the curb.

  246 P.A. Brown

  Hoses snaked out of the fi re trucks. Streams of high-pressure water poured into the glowing inferno of Terry’s house. Goggled and helmeted fi re fi ghters moved in with axes and hooks.

  Chris sat in the back of the black and white staring blankly as chaos unfolded around him.

  They left him sitting in the back seat of the deputy’s vehicle for over an hour while he watched bedlam reign and begged a deity he had never had much faith in before to keep David safe.

  Only when the fi re had been reduced to sullen embers did the deputy return. She came back with a tall, hairless Latino man who slid behind the wheel while she took shotgun. Neither of them looked at him, nor spoke, during the ride to the Santa Clarita Valley station on Magic Mountain Parkway.

  They led him into a small, well-lit room with four chairs and a steel table. The woman motioned at the chair. “Are you injured?

  Do you require medical assistance?”

  “What? No—” then Chris realized they thought he was bleeding. “It was on Terry—”

  The silent Latino took the cuffs off and handed them to his partner. They did a few swabs of his hands, then they both left.

  This time he waited for forty minutes. Finally the door reopened. A bull-necked Anglo deputy entered. He was sweating so profusely his pits were soaked through and his thinning hair was plastered to his
pale skull. His eyes were pale gray pools.

  “Sergeant Clay Ronaldson,” he said. “You mind if we tape this?”

  “Yes,” Chris said. “I do mind. But I expect you’ll do it anyway.”

  The deputy pulled out a chair and sat down. “Can you state your name and address for the record.”

  Chris did so, then he leaned forward putting his arms on the table. Too late he remembered he was covered in blood. Terry’s blood. He snatched his hands away, even though he knew the cop had seen them. “Look,” he said quickly. “You have to tell me, did L.A. BYTES 247

  they fi nd anything in the house? Did they fi nd...anybody besides Terry and his wife?”

  “Are you IDing the bodies we found in the front hallway as Terry? Terry who? What’s his wife’s name?” The deputy eyed him and scratched something on his notepad. “You’re saying there’s a third victim?”

  “David’s a cop,” Chris said. “His car was there—”

  “Cop, huh? What’s his name then? What unit’s he in?”

  “David. Detective David Eric Laine. LAPD. Call his partner, Martinez Diego. At the Northeast Station. He’ll tell you.”

  “And the car?”

  Chris rubbed his damp hands along his thighs, remembering the blood and grimacing. “It’s a ’56 Chevy Two-Tone. Yellow and white coupe.” He rattled off the license plate.

  Ronaldson scribbled in his notepad then got up and opened the door, handing the top sheet to someone on the other side. He came back and sat down.

  “You want to tell me where you got the blood on your hands?”

  “It was on Terry...” He swallowed past a stone that had settled in his chest. “Please, did you fi nd anyone else there? Carol? Oh, God, David—”

  “What were you doing in Santa Clarita, Mr. Bellamere? You here on business or pleasure?”

  Chris knew better than to talk to cops. He leaned forward, knotting his fi ngers together to keep them from shaking. “I’m not talking to you until you call Detective Martinez Diego. He needs to know about David. They’re partners. Maybe you’ll believe me then.”

  “Believe what, Mr. Bellamere?”