Bone Canyon

by Goldberg, Lee

  Nakamura shook his head. “This is the first time I’ve heard anything about her showing the tattoo to anybody but me and I don’t remember any deputy named Pruitt.”

  Eve didn’t know if that was true, but given everything else that he’d admitted, she didn’t see why he’d lie about this one detail. “What did you think happened to Sabrina when her parents reported her missing?”

  “That she’d run off with some guy,” said Nakamura. “I really didn’t care. I was just glad that she was gone.”

  Eve really wanted to punch him in the mouth. “It never occurred to you that she might’ve been murdered by the deputies who’d raped her?”

  “Not for one second.”

  Lansing walked up to Nakamura and faced him. “What about after her bones were found? What about after you knew for a fact that she was killed? What did you think then?”

  “That this is a case where the only outcome of pursuing it further would be that everybody loses.”

  “Not as much as Sabrina Morton did.”

  “That’s done. She is dead and nothing will bring her back to life. Then and now, I did what I thought was best for the department.”

  Lansing glanced at Eve and Duncan, then shifted his gaze back to Nakamura. “You’re a disgrace to the badge. Take it off.”

  Lansing held out his hand, palm up.

  Nakamura removed his badge and put it in Lansing’s hand. As Nakamura reached for his gun, both Eve and Duncan put their hands on their own weapons. He saw this and carefully took his gun out of his holster and gave it to Lansing. “Are we done here?”

  “Burn the uniform when you get home,” Lansing said. “So the infection doesn’t spread.”

  Nakamura got into his car and drove away. Eve watched him go. It was wrong that he was leaving with his freedom, and with his pension, after what he’d done. It was his fault Jimmy Frankel had remained free to rape two women. It was his fault that whoever killed Sabrina Morton remained free and unpunished for so long. How many other cases did he sabotage over the years to save the department embarrassment? At least the rape kit wasn’t destroyed. They still had a shot at finding it.

  “I hate letting him go,” she said.

  “We got the truth,” Duncan said. “That counts for something.”

  Lansing gave Nakamura’s badge to Eve. “It counts for a lot. You can be proud of that. Now go get the men who raped and killed Sabrina Morton.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Explorer smelled like fried chicken. Duncan had insisted on bringing a bucket of Dinah’s home for his wife, so they’d carried it in the back seat from Culver City to Glendale, and now from Glendale back to Calabasas. Eve wasn’t sure the chicken would stay good, but Duncan insisted that once it was fried, it was impervious to rot.

  They sat in the bumper-to-bumper traffic in a comfortable silence. They each had plenty to think about. Tomorrow morning, they would simultaneously arrest Towler and Harding, Eve leading the team on Towler and Duncan leading the one on Harding, so neither deputy could be tipped off by news of the other’s arrest. The two deputies would be surprised, unless Nakamura or somebody in the department’s tactical unit gave them each a call tonight, but Eve didn’t think that would happen.

  About forty-five minutes into the journey, as they hit the 405-and-134-freeway-interchange traffic knot in Sherman Oaks, Duncan’s phone rang. It was Lou Noomis, one of Nan’s CSU team members, a guy Eve thought looked like he had a tennis ball permanently lodged in his throat. He was really good at identifying whether urine was left by man or beast, simply by smell. Eve didn’t want to know how he’d honed that skill.

  Noomis was calling from Crawford’s place, so Duncan put him on speaker.

  “How’s it going out there?” Duncan asked.

  “We’re wrapping it up. I believe we’ve found the murder weapon, a hand-rake, hand-hoe combo tool. There’s traces of blood on the tines and the hilt.”

  “Was she killed in the shed?”

  “The kitchen appears to be the crime scene. The floor has been cleaned countless times over the years, but luminol still brought up the stain. We collected traces of blood, bits of bone, and hair deep in the groove where the tile meets the cabinets. But it will be some time before we can match the DNA to her bones or the hairs that we retrieved today from her hairbrush.”

  “We’ll get a rush on it,” Duncan said.

  “How will you do that?”

  “We can be very persuasive.” Duncan thanked Noomis for his work, disconnected the call, and turned to Eve. “Your turn.”

  Duncan called Burnside and put her on the speaker. Eve told her about the Crawford case and then asked her to do whatever she had to do to make the DNA test a high priority.

  “It doesn’t sound urgent to me,” Burnside said. “Why should I call in a marker for this?”

  “Because you owe me for the Morton case,” Eve said.

  “Isn’t that the other way around?”

  “Not the way I see it. For me, it’s just about closing a case. For you, it’s about your future career.”

  “You’ll get a TV series out of this.”

  “I’ve already got a TV series if I want it. You want to be DA and this case gives you something to run on. You’re gonna owe me for a long time.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Eve took that as a yes that she’d push the DNA results. “We also need you to get us a warrant for Celeste Crawford’s cell phone and credit card records for the week her mother was reported missing so we can double-check her alibi.”

  “Why can’t you do that?”

  “Because you went to law school and became the assistant district attorney and we didn’t.”

  “I’m going to hang up now before you ask me to pick up your dry cleaning and wash your fucking car, too.”

  When Eve got home, she tossed Nakamura’s badge in her junk drawer. She also texted Mitch Sawyer to tell him that she wouldn’t be making her physical therapy appointment on Tuesday morning and if he didn’t like it, she could bring him an excused absence note from the sheriff.

  Shortly after dawn on Tuesday, a personnel carrier from the Sheriff’s Department’s Special Enforcement Detail, their special weapons and tactical unit, rolled into the restricted parking lot at Lost Hills station and parked behind the mobile lab. No officers ending their shift, or starting a new one, paid much if any attention to the vehicle. It was common to see many different LASD vehicles in the lot for all kinds of reasons. What they didn’t know was that it contained an armed five-man team ready to deploy.

  Deputy Chuck Towler arrived at 7:30 a.m. in a two-year-old black Camaro with windows tinted within a percentage point of the legal VLT limit. He got out holding a cup of Starbucks coffee in his right hand, which he’d have to drop if he wanted to reach for the legally concealed Glock in a belt holster under his loose-fitting polo shirt. That made Eve feel a lot more comfortable about stepping out of the station to face him.

  “Good morning, Deputy,” Eve said. “If you set your coffee down on the hood of your car, I might bring it to you later.”

  “After what?”

  “After you’re booked, processed, and locked in a cell.” Eve drew her Glock and aimed it at him. “You’re under arrest for rape and murder.”

  The instant she drew her weapon, the SED team spilled out of the personnel van, in full protective gear and their guns drawn, and took positions in the parking lot that would allow them to shoot Towler where he stood but without anybody else getting hit in the cross fire.

  Towler gave a sideways glance at the tactical officers, then returned his gaze to Eve, his rage radiating with an almost palpable heat. “This is bullshit.”

  “This is justice, long overdue. Turn around and face the car. Place your coffee cup on the hood and put your hands above your head.” He hesitated for a beat, then did as he was told. “Get down on one knee.”

  Towler turned and looked at her. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “On. Yo
ur. Knees,” she demanded. He glowered at her, but he went down on one knee, then the other. “Put your hands behind your head and interlace your fingers.”

  Towler complied. Eve holstered her weapon, held his hands in place with her left hand, and began to pat him down. The tactical officers moved forward, holding him at gunpoint while she searched him.

  Eve removed his gun, gave it to one of the officers, and then removed his car keys, wallet, and a pack of Tic Tacs, which she placed on the hood of the Camaro beside his coffee. She pulled his arms behind his back and handcuffed him.

  “You’re going to regret this, you bitch,” Towler hissed at her, his cheek pressed against the hood of his car.

  Eve responded by yanking him up straight and reading him his rights as she pushed him toward the building ahead of her. One of the tactical officers opened the door for her and several other officers, weapons holstered, followed her into the station as a protective detail in case she encountered any resistance from the deputies during the booking process. Another officer collected Towler’s personal belongings from the Camaro and, since Eve had mentioned it, his coffee.

  As she came in, deputies and other employees peeked out of doorways and stared at her more in anger than in shock. Captain Moffett stepped out of his office, blocking Eve’s path.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  “Call the sheriff, sir,” she said. “He will explain.”

  Moffett stepped aside. “I want to see you in my office in five minutes.”

  “Just as soon as I’ve finished booking the suspect.”

  The tactical officers remained through the booking process to ensure that there was no interference and then stood watch over Towler in his cell when she left him with his cold coffee to go talk to Moffett.

  Deputies stared at her with open loathing as she walked down the hall to Moffett’s office and knocked on the door. He called out to her to come in. She stepped inside and saw that Moffett was on the phone.

  “Close the door. I’m talking with the sheriff,” Moffett said and put Lansing on the speaker. “Detective Ronin has joined us.”

  Lansing said, “First of all, I’m pleased to say that Deputy Harding was arrested at his home this morning without incident and Duncan is bringing him to Lost Hills for booking and questioning.”

  “That’s good to hear, sir,” Eve said.

  “I’ve informed the captain about the case against Towler, Harding, and Frankel . . . and that it was my decision to keep him out of the loop, not yours or Duncan’s. I’ve reassured him that we never doubted his integrity or his trustworthiness, but that secrecy in this situation was essential.”

  “And I informed the sheriff of my profound disappointment that you didn’t come to me first,” Moffett said, drilling Eve with a cold stare.

  Eve found this whole conversation stilted and awkward, especially Moffett’s constrained anger, which he kept in check by balling his hands into fists on his desk. But she’d known that the time would come when she’d have to face him and justify her decision to exclude him from their investigation. The moment had arrived.

  “Duncan and I didn’t know to what extent the station was compromised,” she said. “We still don’t know how many deputies are involved in the Great Whites.”

  “I know exactly how many,” Moffett said. “You just have to walk into the locker room.”

  “Not just here, sir, but spread throughout the department. We don’t know where their loyalties lie.”

  “To the badge,” Moffett said.

  “That means different things to me than it might to them.”

  “Or to me? Is that what you’re saying?” Moffett’s face was reddening.

  Lansing spoke up. “Of course not. It was a tactical decision. We couldn’t risk any word of this investigation leaking, intentionally or inadvertently, before the arrest. That meant nobody at Lost Hills, or even here at headquarters, could know what was coming down. Until this morning, only me, Ronin, Duncan, the DA, and the commander of SED were aware of the investigation or today’s arrests.”

  “This is going to be a major scandal that will be deeply damaging to Lost Hills and my command,” Moffett said. “When word gets out, everybody is going to think this station is full of deputies who are rapists and killers and that it was run by command staff who either turn a blind eye to the corruption or actively condone it.”

  “Not after they’ve heard from me, at a press conference tonight on the steps of the station, that it was you and two of your detectives at Lost Hills who rooted out this corruption and it occurred before either you or Ronin were assigned to the station.”

  “We still have a lot of deputies wearing that ink.”

  “Of course we do, but this happened six years ago, not today. Towler and Harding reflect the past. You and Ronin are our future. That’s the message we’re conveying.”

  Moffett looked at Eve. He wasn’t convinced or happy. “Understood.”

  Eve said, “I’d like to tell Sabrina Morton’s parents about the arrests before they see it on television.”

  “It’s my next call,” Lansing said.

  “Yes, sir,” Eve said, though it left a bitter taste in her mouth. She wanted to be the one to tell them. She thought she briefly detected some smug satisfaction on Moffett’s face over her disappointment.

  “I’ll be back there this afternoon to be briefed and to prep for the press conference with you,” Lansing said and hung up.

  Moffett set the telephone receiver back on the cradle. “You and I have a problem, Ronin. You think you’re working alone, that we all exist here to shine a spotlight on you and your crusades. You’ve disrespected me and now, by arresting Towler at our front door, you’ve disrespected everybody in this building and possibly in the entire department.”

  “He’s a rapist and killer.”

  “That’s beside the point. You, of all people, should understand the terrible optics. You cheated to get this job, stepping over every man and woman who’ve spent years trying to earn their way, through experience, sacrifice, and pain, to get where you are. That’s reason enough for everybody in the department to hate you. What did you do when you got here? You turned against your own. The smart move would have been to come to me when you learned that deputies were involved in the rape and murder, and then let me assign someone else to work with Donuts to take those bastards down. You still would have been a hero. Instead, you let your massive ego get in the way. You wanted center stage, the spotlight on you, over everything else, even if staying behind the curtain would have ultimately been in your best interest.”

  “You’re wrong, sir. All I care about is doing right by Sabrina Morton, who was horribly wronged by this department when she was raped, and again when she was murdered. What achieving that means for my career, or the image of this department, doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Maybe that’s what you tell yourself, or even what you believe, but it’s not the truth. It’s all about you. That ends right now. I am your commanding officer and you work for me. Go behind my back or over my head again, and I will fire you on the spot, Lansing be damned. And if he fights me, I’ll take it to the county board of supervisors, the media, whatever it takes, whatever the personal cost. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, now go finish what you started and don’t fuck it up.”

  Eve went straight to her cubicle, ignoring the hard stares from Garvey, Biddle, and the other detectives in the squad room, and called Josie Wallace at her office. The sheriff hadn’t said anything about calling her. Josie answered the phone. Eve identified herself and then said: “I wanted to let you know, before you see it on the news tonight, that we’ve arrested two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies for your rape, and for Sabrina Morton’s rape and murder. Don’t worry, your name will be withheld from the media. We’ll also be filing the same charges against a former deputy who is already in prison for raping three other women.” There was a long silence when Eve fi
nished speaking. “Are you there, Josie?”

  “Yes, yes I am,” she said, her voice cracking. “I just can’t believe it.”

  “The DNA recovered from your clothing, and your identification of the deputies, was crucial in securing the arrest, but it’s just the beginning. You’ll also need to testify.”

  This was the moment, Eve knew, when the whole case could come tumbling down. Josie was facing the prospect of her past becoming public, of enduring the cruel courtroom shaming that she was afraid of six years ago. The trial and publicity would have a profound impact on her relationships with family, friends, and coworkers. On a more intimate and personal level, it would mean reliving in excruciating detail the worst night of her life again and again for the world to hear. What if Josie refused to go through with it? Could Eve really blame her if she did?

  “I made a decision, without even realizing it, when I identified those deputies for you,” Josie said softly. “I’m not going to be afraid anymore. I’m not going to let them control me. That’s what they’ve been doing. They’ve kept me silent for six years. I let them get away with murder. That’s over, thanks to you.”

  Eve sighed with relief. Josie hadn’t changed her mind. “I didn’t do anything, Josie. You gave me the evidence that will put them away.”

  “It was worthless without someone willing to fight for me and Sabrina. I didn’t think there would ever be anyone . . . until you came back with those photos and I saw the determination in your eyes. I saw Sabrina looking back at me. I knew you wouldn’t stop unless they killed you, too. If you could have that courage, so could I.”

  “I won’t lie to you, Josie. It’s going to be an ordeal.”

  “It can’t be worse than what they already did to me, or what I’ve put myself through, or what Sabrina endured,” Josie said. “I’m ready to face them. They should be worried about facing me.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Eve and Duncan decided that it would be better if he conducted the interrogations, because they agreed that Towler would likely be less defensive with him than with her. Besides, Eve knew that Duncan was a far more experienced interrogator. During her weeks of desk duty, he’d been schooling her in his techniques. This would be his final lesson, broadcast on CCTV into the captain’s office, where Eve was watching with Burnside and Moffett.