Burnside spotted Eve immediately and came over to her. “Is this an ambush?”
“You might say that,” Eve said. “Your office told me you were here. I need a word in private.”
“I only have a few minutes. It’s lunch recess and I’m starving.”
“So am I.” Eve held up her bribe. “I know where we can eat and have some privacy.”
Five minutes later, they were in the parking structure behind the courthouse, sitting in the front seat of Eve’s Explorer with the air conditioner running. Burnside took a Double-Double with Cheese out of the bag, holding it as if it were nitroglycerin that could explode at any moment.
“This better be important, Detective,” Burnside said. “And if I dribble anything on my blouse, I’m sending you the dry-cleaning bill.”
“Fair enough,” Eve said. She took a bite of her own Double-Double for energy and launched into the story of Sabrina Morton’s death, the tattoos, the lost rape kit, the IDs by Josie Wallace, and the DNA evidence in the trunk of the car.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever find the rape kit,” Eve said in conclusion, “but in the meantime, I want to run the DNA that I’ve collected against whatever is on Josie Wallace’s sundress and bikini.”
Burnside dabbed her lips delicately with a napkin. She managed to finish her burger and her fries without damaging her wardrobe at all. “Why are you telling me this? Why not your captain or someone else in your chain of command at LASD?”
“Because I don’t know who I can trust or who else has the tattoo,” Eve said. “The detective on the Sabrina Morton case six years ago is now assistant sheriff and he warned me not to pursue the rape angle in my murder investigation. I don’t want this buried with Sabrina Morton’s bones.”
“So you’re going outside the department to cover your ass.”
“That’s about it,” Eve said and took a few bites of her burger.
“The DA’s office might not be enough cover.”
Eve waited to swallow her mouthful of food before speaking. “Are you saying I have a gigantic ass?”
“This could still cost you your career in law enforcement, tainting you as a traitor, regardless of whether you are right about those deputies being guilty of rape, and possibly murder.” Burnside checked her watch. “Not that you have any evidence to support that.”
“Yet,” Eve said.
“It’s a big evidentiary mountain to climb and you could take a big fall on your way up.”
“I’m doing this, Counselor, with or without you.”
Burnside took a sip of her drink, put it back in the cup holder, then reached into her briefcase for a yellow legal pad. “Okay, I’ll memorialize this conversation in writing, so when this comes out nobody can say you went rogue.” She started making notes, and another thought occurred to her. “In fact, I’ll say we spoke yesterday and I authorized you to collect the DNA samples from the deputies.”
“You don’t need to do that for me.”
“I think I do,” she said.
“In that case, you should know I also took a DNA sample from Assistant Sheriff Nakamura,” Eve said.
“You did?”
Eve nodded.
“You really are Deathfist,” Burnside said and went back to making notes. “I’ll call the lab before I go back into court and let them know you’re walking the evidence in and that it’s a rush. We should have the results on Monday or Tuesday.”
“What about your career?”
“This is what I do. Besides, it won’t hurt me to take on the sheriff’s department, even if you’re wrong about everything,” Burnside said. “It makes me look tough and incorruptible.”
“Sounds like you’re planning to run for DA someday.”
“You’re not the only one with ambition, Eve.”
“I don’t play politics.”
Burnside laughed. “Oh please. You wouldn’t be in homicide, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation, if you didn’t play politics and play it well.” The prosecutor put her pad back in her briefcase, opened the door, and started to get out of the car, when she had another thought. “By the way, I see Cobie Smulders playing me in the TV series.”
Eve had no idea who that actress was, not that it mattered. “There isn’t going to be one.”
“Don’t blow it off,” Burnside said. “You’re probably going to need the paycheck.”
The crime labs for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles Police Department, and nearly fifty other local law enforcement agencies, were housed at the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center on the Los Angeles campus of California State University in Monterey Park. Eve checked in the evidence with the clerk, filled out the forms, and was walking away from the counter when Duncan emerged from one of the doors leading to the back rooms.
“I heard you were out here,” Duncan said. “Did you come to give me a hand?”
“I’ll tell you outside.”
They walked through the lobby in silence, out to the parking lot, and kept going along the fenced perimeter.
“I’ve just delivered the sundress and bikini that Josie Wallace was wearing when she was raped,” Eve said as they walked. “She’s been saving it as an insurance policy.”
“No wonder she’s in the insurance business,” he said. “But that won’t do us much good without Sabrina Morton’s rape kit.”
“There’s more,” Eve said. “I put together a photo array of deputies who were off duty the day of the rape and I showed it to her. She identified three of them. Charles Towler, David Harding, and Jimmy Frankel, who is in Soledad, doing nine years for raping three women he pulled over on traffic stops. I got a full statement from her.”
“Good work,” Duncan said. “Now we need DNA samples from the deputies.”
“It’s done. I also submitted samples from Towler and Harding today. I didn’t know about Frankel until this morning, but his DNA must already be in the system.”
Duncan stopped walking and stared at her. “I’m assuming you didn’t ask Towler and Harding to give you cheek swabs or hair follicles.”
“I collected samples from them yesterday without their knowledge,” she said. “But I cleared it with ADA Burnside.”
Eve surprised herself by how easily she adopted the lie. It wasn’t something she was proud of.
“But you didn’t say a word to me about it,” Duncan said. “I’m your partner, damn it. You should have told me what you were doing and let me be the one to talk to Burnside.”
“I can’t hide behind you forever.”
“You could have for another 114 days. I have nothing to lose.”
“Only your legacy,” she said, walking on, not that she had anywhere to go. “You deserve to retire without me staining your record.”
Duncan kept pace beside her. “I don’t give a shit about my record.”
“Well, I do,” Eve said. “Have you made any progress finding the rape kit?”
“No, but there’s still a chance it was misfiled.”
“I think it never got here,” she said.
“You better hope that it did, because Josie Wallace’s clothing is far from a slam dunk, even if it’s soaked with DNA.”
“What do you mean?”
They reached the far end of the parking lot and started to circle back toward the building.
“A good defense attorney will argue that we have no idea when those samples were actually left on Josie Wallace’s clothing, that it could have come from consensual encounters days, weeks, or even years after Sabrina Morton was allegedly raped,” Duncan said. “They’ll say all her semen-stained clothes prove is that Josie was a party girl who likes fucking cops.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Eve said. “I think a jury, given the context under which Josie’s clothing was recovered and the totality of the evidence in the case, would reject that argument.”
“That’s because you were still in nursery school during the O.J. trial,” Duncan said.
It
took Eve ninety minutes to get back to Lost Hills station, which was fast for a Friday night.
At the station, she turned in the Explorer, rode her bike home, and got into her Subaru Outback to go searching for a children’s pirate treasure-hunting kit for her niece’s birthday party tomorrow afternoon.
Her first stop was the Walmart in Canoga Park, because they had an in-store McDonald’s and she could eat dinner while she was shopping. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the kit, so she ate her Big Mac, fries, and Diet Coke at a table and then went to the Target on the other side of the same shopping center.
She didn’t find the pirate treasure-hunting kit there, either, but they did have all the elements for her to create one herself. Target stocked a toy pirate chest, stuffed with plastic doubloons and fake jewels, and they also sold a metal detector’s tool kit that came with a plastic hand shovel, trowel, and sifter. She bought both products and a camouflaged shoulder bag for them to go in.
The gift shopping was a nice distraction, but as soon as the task was complete, and she was on her way home, her mind drifted to the Sabrina Morton case again and what Duncan had said. She knew he was right, that she would need more than the tattoo drawing, the DNA, and Josie Wallace’s testimony to make the rape case against the deputies and establish the motive for Sabrina’s murder.
What she needed was another witness, someone who could add credibility to Josie’s claims, and establish that the deputies knew Sabrina was coming after them.
Nakamura would be perfect, but there was no way he’d step up.
That left only one person.
There was a white picket fence around the front lawn of Deputy Brad Pruitt’s tract home in Castaic, an unincorporated area in the northwest corner of Los Angeles County that was once the battleground in one of the bloodiest, and longest lasting, range wars in US history. Now Castaic was mostly known, if it was known at all, for the giant reservoir that had submerged most of the disputed land. If the earthen Castaic dam ever collapsed, then Pruitt’s house, on the western ridge of the floodplain above Interstate 5, would become riverfront property.
Pruitt was in his driveway, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, washing his Ford F-150 truck with his five-year-old son, when Eve pulled up across the street in her Subaru on Saturday morning. They were scrubbing the car with soap sponges.
She was dressed in a tank top and jeans, but she could see from the expression on Pruitt’s face that he’d pegged her as a cop. Perhaps he detected the ankle holster on her right leg. He dropped his sponge in a bucket of water and turned to face her as she approached.
“Deputy Pruitt,” Eve said. “I’m Detective Eve Ronin. I work homicide out of Lost Hills.”
“I know who you are. I’ve seen the videos,” Pruitt said. “You don’t look the same without your cape and golden lasso.”
His son whirled around, excited and soaking wet. “She has a cape?”
“She thinks she’s Wonder Woman,” Pruitt told the boy.
“I’m Batman!” the boy told Eve, poking himself in the chest with his thumb.
“You are?” Eve said. “You don’t look like Batman.”
Pruitt nodded toward the house. “Why don’t you show her, Jake?”
Jake wagged a finger at Eve. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Pruitt watched his son run to the front door and go inside. Eve stole a glance at Pruitt’s calf and saw the Great White tattoo. He turned back to her.
“He’s cute,” Eve said.
“What are you doing here, Detective?”
“I’m investigating the murder of Sabrina Morton.”
“I don’t know her.”
“She was raped six years ago on the beach in Malibu,” Eve said, “back when you were working patrol at Lost Hills.”
“Still doesn’t ring any bells.”
“She went around showing people a drawing of the rapist’s tattoo, hoping someone would recognize it,” Eve said. “You pulled her over and told her she was putting herself in danger. Does that refresh your memory?”
Pruitt studied her for a long moment, perhaps wondering exactly how much she knew or could prove, before making a decision. “Yeah, I remember her now. Some surfers told me what she was doing. It was reckless. I was concerned that she might get hurt.”
“Was that why you were concerned?” Eve asked. “Or were you worried about your friends?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Eve reached into her back pocket, took out a piece of paper, and unfolded it. “This is the drawing she was showing around.” She held it up in front of her. “It’s the same tattoo you’ve got on your leg.”
Pruitt didn’t flinch. “So do dozens of other deputies and detectives.”
“Which brings me back to my question. Who were you really concerned about getting hurt, Brad?”
That got under his skin. He took a step toward her. “I didn’t rape her.”
Eve stood her ground. “I didn’t say you did.”
That was when Jake bolted out of the house, dressed in a Batman costume, followed by his very pregnant mother. Eve put the drawing back in her pocket and Pruitt took a step back from her.
“I’m the Batman!” Jake said, affecting the Affleck growl.
His mother duckwalked out toward them. Her belly seemed far too big for the woman’s tiny frame. She eyed Eve with a wary gaze. “Hello. Jake said Wonder Woman was outside. I had to see for myself.”
“I don’t have any superpowers,” Eve said to her, then smiled at Jake. “But you do. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Batman.”
“My superpower is that I’m rich,” Jake said, still in character.
“That’s not a superpower,” his mother said to him. “I’ve told you that.”
“Terri, this is Eve Ronin, a detective from Calabasas,” Pruitt said.
Eve offered her a polite smile. “I’m following up on a case your husband worked on a few years ago.”
“It’s a Saturday,” Terri said, sensing the tension between Eve and her husband. Her words were a rebuke aimed at Eve. “It’s his day off.”
“She won’t be long,” Pruitt said.
Terri gave Eve a cold look, then held her hand out to her son. “How would Batman like a juice box?”
“Batjuice,” Jake growled and took his mom’s hand, gladly letting himself be taken back inside. Pruitt watched his family go and turned to Eve the instant the front door was closed.
“How dare you come to my home with this shit,” he said. Now he was growling like the Batman.
“You may not have raped her, but you know who did, and instead of helping her, you chose them.”
“I’m loyal to the badge,” he said.
“So am I. To me, that means loyalty to what the badge represents, not to the people who wear it. One of the deputies that you protected went on to rape two other women.” Now she got in his face, staring him in the eye, letting him see her anger. “That’s on you.”
He shook his head.
“Oh yes, it is. You’re also an accessory after the fact in the rape and murder of Sabrina Morton, for keeping your mouth shut about what you knew.”
“Murder? What murder?”
“The day after you warned her to stop asking questions about the rapists with that tattoo”—she pointed to his leg—“someone broke her neck and tossed her body off a cliff. But she wasn’t silenced. The truth is coming out, Brad. All of it. Every sordid detail. I’m giving you the opportunity to get on the right side of this, or go down with the rest of them.”
Pruitt couldn’t look at her. “I’ve got a family.”
“We’ve all got families,” Eve said and walked away to see hers.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There was something creepy to Eve about her younger brother, Kenny, living a block away from the house they grew up in. Going to visit him was like driving into the past, and not in a good way. She wondered why, out of all the places to live in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, he had to pick this neighbor
hood. She didn’t have fond memories of her time here, she thought, so how could he?
The actual house Jen rented was gone now, torn down to build a McMansion that was way too big for the narrow lot, and even though it was brick and mortar and not a living thing, it still looked to Eve as she drove past like it was sucking in its walls to fit and might suddenly explode into its true size. If it ever did, the wreckage would probably hit Kenny’s place on the next street.
His house was a tiny two-bedroom, one-bath ranch-style house on a long, narrow lot, with a detached garage in the backyard. Eve knocked on the front door promptly at noon, holding her present for Cassidy in the Target bag.
Kenny opened the door, wearing a stained apron and smelling of hickory smoke. Even though he was married, and a father, she couldn’t get over the feeling that he was a little kid playing house. He hadn’t outgrown his boyishness and she hoped he never did.
“Noon on the button, I knew it.” Kenny stepped out and gave Eve a kiss. “Have you ever been fashionably late for anything?”
“There’s nothing fashionable about being late,” Eve said as she stepped inside. “Besides, I wanted to prep Cassie’s gift.” She held up the Walmart bag.
“Great,” Kenny said, closing the door. “Because I hate assembling toys.”
The house was recently renovated by someone who’d watched a lot of HGTV fixer-upper shows, so Eve stepped inside an open-concept living room / kitchen that opened out to the awning-covered backyard, where there was an outdoor dining set, making the outside like another room.
“No assembly required,” Eve said. “I have to bury some things in the garden for Cassie to dig up.”
“I hope it’s not bodies,” said Rachel, Kenny’s apron-clad wife, as she walked around the kitchen’s peninsula to greet her. “Even if they are dolls.”
“Of course not,” Eve said, giving Rachel a hug. “What kind of aunt do you think I am?”
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