L.A. Boneyard

by P. A. Brown

  Jairo grimaced. “Later.”

  David called CHP and got the name of the first responding officer. From him he found that the case had been assigned to Central division; a Detective Yamagata was the lead.

  He called Central, only to find that Yamagata was out. He left a message to call him, then waited to hear what his protégé was up to. He would have been more than happy to hear Jairo had asked for a transfer to another division, but he doubted Jairo would be so accommodating. For some reason, he seemed determined to disrupt David’s life as much as possible. It didn’t help that Chris wasn’t around to buffer his clumsy seduction attempts. And that thought enraged him. Since when did he need someone to run interference with his honor? He wasn’t a slave to his libido. Chris was the only one who had been able to insinuate himself past David’s defenses. He’d damn near given up everything for Chris, his job, his future, his life. Surely what they’d forged was stronger than a casual lust from an almost perfect stranger.

  David sighed and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. The late morning sun had already heated the leather wheel cover to an almost scalding level. He welcomed the burn.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Monday, 8:15 PM, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles David spent a short twenty minutes with Chris at the hospital, but he was heavily sedated and barely aware of David’s presence. He tried to talk, keeping his tone chatty and full of funny happenings about the dog and his day, but his heart grew heavier as the evening wore on and Chris never responded.

  Finally he gave up, kissed Chris’s slightly parted lips and left, promising to return the next day.

  David let himself into the house, receiving a noisy greeting from Sergeant. They stood in the foyer staring at each other across the tile floor. David held himself stiffly. The dog glared, posturing.

  Finally David said, “We’re going to have to come to an understanding here. Right now it’s just you and me. Chris is gone and much as I’d like to drop kick you into the nearest pound, I promised him I’d take care of you. But you better behave. Besides,” he said in the same voice he used to talk to armed punks. “I’ve got a gun. It’s a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson, with 15 rounds and one in the chamber. You do not want to mess with me.”

  Maybe the dog knew what a gun was. Maybe he knew a threat when he heard one. For whatever reason, Sergeant turned his head, and after another tense few seconds, padded back into the kitchen. One problem solved, now what was he going to do with the thing? He personally wanted to do nothing more than sprawl in his lounger and watch a game that didn’t require any thought. But he could hardly leave the dog to his own resources. Not unless he wanted to clean up a different kind of mess.

  He changed into sweats, grabbed his LAPD jacket out the hall closet and scooped up the new leash. Sergeant bound 64 P.A. Brown

  toward him, clearly having forgiven all their beefs. When David, determined to drive himself to exhaustion, took up a ground eating jog, the dog smoothly fell into step beside him. They trotted over the crest of the hill and headed down toward the reservoir. He couldn’t help notice, with some amusement, that a lot of people crossed the street when they saw the two of them coming.

  He glanced down at the trotting dog at his side. “You’re a scary guy, you know that?”

  He slowed to cross Silver Lake Boulevard so they could head across to the meadowland, the area some local committee was fighting DWP over. The first time he spotted the white car, it didn’t click. But when it became obvious the all too familiar Firehawk was trailing them, he slowed, and eventually stopped.

  Sergeant fell to sniffing around the grassy verge, but he looked up eagerly when Jairo climbed out of the car, a large chocolate lab trailing after him.

  “Thought you could use some company since you’re flying solo these days,” he said as he came alongside David.

  The two dogs greeted each other cautiously, which quickly degenerated into play bowing and leash tangling lunges.

  “Do you know the definition of stalking?”

  “Sure.” Jairo grinned easily. “I’m not stalking you. We’re partners, remember.”

  “Somehow I don’t think this is part of the definition of what partnership is supposed to mean.”

  “Hey, I need the exercise, you need the exercise and the dogs... well, look for yourself.”

  It was hard to deny the two dogs were ecstatic. Jairo tugged at his dog’s leash. “Come on, Popeye, let’s blow off some steam.”

  “You call your dog Popeye?”

  Jairo grinned. “The kids came up with that. Could have been worse. Could have been SpongeBob SquarePants.”

  David blinked at him. “You’re serious?”

  L.A. BONEYARD 65

  “You don’t hang around kids very much, do you?”

  They jogged north along Silver Lake Boulevard and cut through to the park that bordered the reservoir there. Though it was dark, the park was still active with other joggers and dog walkers.

  They ran until all four were forced to stop, sucking in great drafts of air. A cold breeze off the water fanned the sweat off David’s forehead. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket.

  “That does it for me,” David said. “I’m heading in. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He tried to be forceful with his words. The last thing he needed was Jairo following him.

  “Sure.” Jairo did some leg stretches, baring the bronze skin of his belly, where a thin line of hair snaked down into his track pants. “I guess I’ll see you mañana.”

  “I want to see those reports. We can go over them together.

  What did you find out about the autopsy on the overpass victim?”

  “Fenton’s going to do the post tomorrow. You going to attend?”

  At first David was going to say no, but this one was a little too close to home to brush off. He nodded. “I’ll be there, the D

  from Central said we can sit in.”

  “Gonna be a crowded morgue,” Jairo drawled.

  “You offering to transfer out? I can start the paperwork tomorrow if you want.”

  Jairo smiled. “No, that’s okay, I’m sticking around. I’m not a quitter.”

  “Good for you,” David muttered.

  He caught the beginning of a Lakers and Houston game, but turned it off during the half time show, when the Lakers were trailing badly. Sergeant followed him upstairs and took up his normal place at the foot of the bed. But sometime in the middle of the night, David awoke to find the dog sprawled across Chris’s side of the bed. He didn’t have the heart to kick him off.

  66 P.A. Brown

  He would never admit it to anyone, least of all Chris, but it was comforting to have something in the bed with him. He refused to entertain the image of Jairo taking Sergeant’s place. That played havoc with his already well defined fantasies.

  Sergeant snored.

  Tuesday, 8:15 AM, County Coroner’s Office, North Mission Road, East Los Angeles

  Inside the drab white coroner’s, David greeted the forensic pathologist Fenton and Detective Yamagata while they waited for the body to be wheeled in and transferred to the autopsy table. David knew Captain Fredericks had already cleared it with Central’s chain of command to allow them to observe the post.

  If Yamagata had any issues with that, he wasn’t letting on.

  The first round of photos were taken, then the woman’s bloody and torn clothes were cut off her and stored in paper bags. The pockets were searched, but no ID or wallet was recovered. More photos were taken of the now naked body.

  Fenton had the photographer take a couple of extra pictures of the victim’s face. He frowned. “Some pretty heavy damage done to the facial striata. Not entirely consistent with an impact.

  In fact...” He leaned closer. “It looks like the wounds were beginning to heal, so they were definitely pre-mortem. Skin appears to have been sliced, possibly with a razor or a very sharp knife.”

  “Scalpel?” Yamagata asked.

  “Possibly.”
>
  “So she was cut before she was tossed?”

  “Looks that way. I can tell you more after I get a better look.”

  Fenton then pointed out a small, angular tattoo on the upper thigh. It looked like a series of triangles and diamond shapes. “Looks like a weird scarecrow.” The photographer L.A. BONEYARD 67

  caught it at several angles. The X-rays taken revealed one anomaly. “And some kind of writing. BEREHENYA.”

  “Something else,” Fenton said. “Gold teeth.”

  David straightened. “What?”

  “Gold teeth.” Fenton shone a strong light into the back of her mouth and David caught the glitter of metal. “Two upper molars. We’ll include that with the dental records. Can’t be too many women with gold molars.”

  Yamagata caught David’s interest. “That mean something?”

  “We caught a pair of DBs in Griffith Park, female Caucasian and her unborn. She had gold teeth too. And some unusual tattoos, similar to that.”

  “Other than the teeth, no gross abnormalities,” Fenton went on. “Normal Caucasian female,” Fenton lifted each eyelid and peered into her eyes. “Severe facial lacerations, blunt force trauma to the skull. No petechial hemorrhaging in the conjunctiva.”

  Y incision, then weighing and measuring everything took the better part of an hour. Through it all, Fenton’s gravelly voice intoned each observation. Finally the reproductive organs were removed. Fenton’s voice changed. “Got another similarity for you. Subject is approximately fifteen weeks pregnant. Fetus appears to be a normally developed female.”

  David met Jairo’s startled gaze.

  “Does that mean something?” Yamagata asked.

  David chewed on his lip. He addressed Fenton. “Any idea what’s happening to the second body from that grave? Has an autopsy been scheduled on that?”

  “I believe a forensic anthropologist has been called in for it.

  The bones are in the process of being denuded. You want to be notified for that autopsy, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll let him know.”

  “Thanks,” David said. “So, can you give us a cause of death?”

  68 P.A. Brown

  “Severe trauma, intracranial hemorrhage, intraparenchymal bleeding and subarachnoid hemorrhaging.” The blank looks on everyone’s face made him add, “Bleeding in the area between the arachnoid membrane and within the brain’s ventricles.”

  “That’s a lot of help,” Jairo muttered. “I didn’t know you had to have a medical degree to do this job.”

  Fenton, unfazed, smiled, showing a gap between his teeth.

  “That’s okay, I didn’t know I had to be a legal eagle to work here. But it helps. Layman’s terms? She hit her head so hard on the pavement it cracked her skull open and she bled out into her brain. There’s other trauma too—broken bones, burst spleen, but those things she might have survived with prompt medical attention. The head thing, not so lucky. Even if she’d fallen from the top floor of the USC medical center, she wouldn’t have made it.”

  “Can you run a full tox screen?” David asked.

  “Already in the works,” Fenton said. “The original incident report stated the officer thought she appeared drugged. It will take a few days for all the screens to be run. We’ll test her stomach contents. If anything’s there, we’ll find it.”

  David glanced at Yamagata. “If the primary agrees, I’d like to hear the results of those tests.”

  Yamagata nodded. “I’ll see you get them. This related to something you’re on?”

  “Our Griffith Park DBs.”

  The autopsy ended and the body was returned to storage for future internment if an identity could ever be established. No one in Northeast had to write up an incident report on this one.

  That would be Yamagata’s job. If Yamagata was feeling generous, he might cc the report to David. David would keep himself in the loop as much as possible, but he had his own caseloads to contend with. Not to mention he had a randy rookie D to keep in line. Still, he intended to approach Lieutenant McKee about rolling this case into his Griffith Park case.

  L.A. BONEYARD 69

  Outside the morgue he stripped off his sterile coverall and Tyvek booties and dumped them in the hamper. Then he headed back to the station, Jairo following. There was a note from the division captain; he wanted David’s 60-day reports on his desk by roll call tomorrow. He also wanted a status report on Jairo’s progress. David was really looking forward to that.

  With nothing new on any of his cases, and no new ones, David called it a day at six. He grabbed a French dip from Philippes and walked in on Chris just starting up on his supper, a tasteless looking plate of gray potatoes, grayer meat and something that might have been green beans, except they were gray, too.

  Chris looked up at his entrance, and the bag swinging at his side. “Thank God, I was thinking I might actually have to eat this stuff.”

  He practically inhaled the sandwich and Coke and lay back with a sigh. “You just saved my life.”

  “Glad to be of service,” David belatedly stooped down and collected a kiss, which tasted of beef and au jus. He perched on the edge of the bed, holding Chris’s hand in his lap.

  “Talked to the doctor today,” Chris said, playing with the fingers of David’s hand. “He’s sending me home tomorrow.”

  “Good, Sergeant misses you.”

  “Oh, and you don’t?” Suddenly he dropped David’s hand.

  “It’s good, but I also saw Dr. Jantz today and he wants me to fly out to New York, to meet his partners.”

  “Jantz?”

  “You know, the new contract...”

  “They want you to fly out east? What does the doctor say about that?”

  Chris shrugged. “As long as I take it easy and don’t try anything strenuous, he’s okay with it.”

  David raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but he doesn’t know you very well, does he?”

  70 P.A. Brown

  “I’m not going to get into trouble, if that’s what you’re implying. I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Leopards don’t change their spots.”

  “This one does,” Chris purred, stroking David’s thigh.

  David stirred uneasily, all too aware of the open door.

  David caught his hand and held it captive. “The dog misses you. We’re both tired of going to bed alone.”

  “It’ll only be for a few days. I really need to do this.”

  “Hey, I understand,” David said. “It’s your job.”

  “I’ll make it up to you...” The smile he gave his lover was alive with promise. “Seriously. Do me a favor, pack a bag for me tonight. I’ll call you when I know what time my flight leaves.”

  “What about dinner this weekend? Or will you be back by then?”

  “Better if I reschedule. But, call the vet, will you? I posted his number on the fridge. Find out who else we can call about the dog. Call them.”

  “What if they want the dog back?”

  Chris looked away. “Then you do what you gotta do. I’ll understand.”

  I might not. But David couldn’t very well say that, not after making such a big deal about finding the dog’s real owner. He didn’t want to admit he’d miss the big goof. After a rocky start they’d started bonding. It was fun having a jogging partner. He did his best not to think of his other jogging partner and the thoughts that kept playing in his head as he remembered things that never should have happened.

  David stayed until visitor’s hours were declared over.

  Reluctantly he leaned over the bed and kissed Chris soundly, determined to wipe out all treacherous thoughts of Jairo from his overactive imagination.

  Then he drove home and found his nemesis parked in the driveway, his chocolate lab gamboling on the lawn, the next door neighbor out with her own yellow lab.

  L.A. BONEYARD 71

  David nodded at his neighbor, told her Chris was doing much better, and would be home soon, then intro
duced Jairo, though he could see the two were getting on like a house on fire. The personable young man didn’t seem to have any trouble making friends.

  David took hold of his elbow, and led the compliant Jairo into the cool foyer, away from his nosy neighbor. He was forestalled from giving his partner a piece of his mind by Sergeant’s greeting. By the time he got out of his work clothes, and changed, Jairo was waiting serenely by the front door with both dogs.

  “You have got to stop doing this,” David snapped.

  Jairo handed him Sergeant’s leash. “Why? It’s not like I’m dragging you up to bed, though I admit I’d like to. But I promised I’d be good.”

  “What the hell would you do if I called your wife up and told her what you were up to?”

  “She wouldn’t believe you. She wouldn’t understand why you were saying it, and she wouldn’t believe you.”

  Just like the cops down at Northeast wouldn’t believe what was going on right under their noses. They wouldn’t see what they didn’t want to see. He sighed, wishing Jairo would just give it up. Wishing he would leave. But a treacherous part of his mind didn’t want Jairo to go away. And that horrified him.

  Could he really give in to temptation that easily? He’d always seen himself as rooted in honor. He loved Chris. That had to mean something, didn’t it? Something more important than what he wanted to do to Jairo, right now, right here.

  “So I guess if I can’t get rid of you until we’ve walked the dogs, let’s get it over with.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tuesday, 9:15 AM, Northeast Community Police Station, San Fernando Road, Los Angeles

  David spent most of the morning at his desk, fielding phone calls and trying to track down tattoo parlors that might recognize the weird lettering. He’d had to do this before when a tattoo was the only distinguishing mark on a dead victim. It still amazed him how many tattoo artists the city of L.A had.