A Twisted Path

by Steve Winshel

  He could hear Merrill rummaging around upstairs. Furyk pulled out his phone and went into the kitchen. He pointed it at the gun on the floor and took a close-up picture. Then he stood further back and got a shot at a wider angle, including Cordoza’s body. Then a third with Cordoza and Felicia. The gun wasn’t LAPD issue. It could easily disappear during the first few minutes of the cops being on the scene. Furyk wanted at least some visual evidence before he took off.

  Merrill came down the stairs lugging a huge suitcase. Furyk refrained from sending her back upstairs to descope her packing efforts. He took it from her before she got to the bottom of the stairs and he put another hand on her arm to gently bring her along. They went out the front door just as Furyk could hear some rustling in the kitchen. The distant sound of sirens faintly filled the air. Prole had given him a few extra minutes, but no more. He got Merrill in the passenger seat and put the ridiculous Gucci suitcase in the trunk. Merrill still didn’t say a word, just the sad smile on her face, as they slowly pulled away from the curb and maintained the speed limit as they drove down the side streets and turned right toward the beach on San Vicente Blvd.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Cordoza woke with a start, not with the slow raising of the veil of unconsciousness like someone coming out of anesthesia. The pain in his wrist and face were overwhelming, but his mind was only on Furyk. He heard the front door slam shut and he tried to pull himself to his knees by pushing down on the floor. The lightning bolt of pain through his wrist was unbearable and he shifted the weight to the other hand and rolled so he was facing the ground. The surge of blood in his face was like a jackhammer against the shattered bone in his cheek and eye socket and he almost lost consciousness again. He’d inflicted this kind of pain on others, and experienced something comparable when he’d been on the losing end of a few rough fights when younger. It did not cloud his hatred – or his judgment. On both knees and one hand now, he ignored the pounding with every heartbeat in his face and scanned the part of the kitchen floor that was visible. Dead girl straight ahead. Beretta way off to the left. The woman gone. Furyk gone.

  He could use his radio to call it in, blame the shooting on Furyk, let Brant come up with the full cover story. That meant lots of lies, starting as soon as the cops got there. Or he could get the hell out and buy some time to sort things out. Starting with finding Furyk. The woman would be with him and he’d kill two birds with as many stones as it took. Neither option was ideal and meant a mess that had to be cleaned up. He would need Brant’s help whether he stayed or left.

  Cordoza forced himself to stand and he shook with agony and lightheadedness as he reached his full height. Grabbing a dish towel hanging off the front of the oven, he picked up the Beretta by the butt. Putting it on the counter, he held it in place by blocking it from sliding away with his useless right hand and wiped it down awkwardly with his left that held the towel. When his prints were gone, he hung the towel back up and straightened it. With the corner of his shirt, he picked the gun up by the barrel and carried it out of the kitchen. Facing the front door, he was stymied.

  “Goddamnit.” He bent over and tried to bring the gun up under his right armpit to hold it while he opened the door, keeping it wrapped in the cloth of his shirt, but there wasn’t enough loose material for him to reach. His right hand was useless.

  “Shit!” and the sudden movement of his jaw as he cursed hard renewed the explosive pain in his face. The gun dropped as a wave of nausea came over him. It clattered to the floor and he had to bend over and catch his breath. As the rasping from his fight for air subsided, he could hear the sirens getting closer. Straightening, he opened the front door using his shirt again as an improvised glove, and then picked up the Beretta the same way. Before going through the door, he tossed the gun through the opening and into the bushes to the side of the door so no one would see him walk out the front door and then throw it. It was a minimalist gesture – the gun couldn’t be traced to him but an investigator wouldn’t spend a lot of time thinking the killer wiped the gun then bothered to carry it just outside the house as a way to hide it. Cordoza would deal with the subtleties later. Right now, he needed to be in his car.

  Any observing neighbors would be able to ID him going out – or going in, if they’d been persistent in looking out their window – but he wasn’t looking for an alibi, just some time. He left the front door open and trotted to his car, the bouncing action pinpointing every location where there was pain in his body. Remembering to use his left hand, he got the door open and clumsily started the ignition by reaching across the steering wheel. He hit the gas hard and sped away, in the opposite direction of the sirens. His plan for now was a call to Brant when he was clear of the neighborhood, then a trip to the hospital, and then a search-and-destroy mission for the woman and Furyk.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  The lack of developments in the Wick murder case over the last day had lessened the newsworthiness of staking out Merrill’s house and catching her infrequent comings and goings. The two cameramen and their respective news-gathering anchors working for opposing local television stations had jointly agreed to swing down to Denny’s and grab breakfast. They arrived back at the Wick house just as two squad cars and Prole’s crappy sedan pulled into the street. Still wiping syrup from their hands, the cameramen jumped out of the van they had used belonging to the Channel 7 guys and hit the Record button. Prole pulled her gun and held it loosely at her side. She directed the patrol guys to split up and go around different sides of the house. She shot one look at the news guys and from experience they knew to give her some room.

  “Don’t shoot each other when you get to the back,” she snarled at the younger cops and pointed to one of the older guys, jerking her thumb toward the front door. She wanted one of them to go in with her, but following her lead. She’d go through the open door first. Furyk was clearly gone, and Cordoza had either bolted or was inside pretending to secure the crime scene – there wasn’t much danger, but he was crazy and maybe some part of him would be happy to blow away the first person to pop in the house. Maybe he’d overheard Furyk talking to her on the phone while he played possum. Not likely, but better someone with some brains go through the door first. She still thought Furyk was out of his mind, thinking Cordoza was getting direction from a boss in the department or equally connected hotshot. But out of his mind didn’t mean he was wrong. She crouched and went in the door low, gun now pointing forward and swinging side to side as she entered the foyer.

  She cleared the hallway and swung into the living room, pointing for the cop to follow behind and then go off to the left to check the bathroom and small closet off the main hall. The living room was empty and she headed to the kitchen, not coming in straight toward the open door but from an angle. She poked her head quickly through the door and pulled back, processing the image while she kept her back against the wall between the living room and kitchen. No one standing, not in sight, but an island in the middle someone could be hiding behind. Just like she remembered from the night of Wick’s death. A couple of additions, though. Dead girl and lots of blood on the left. Nothing else, except a large copper pot and some spilled liquid a couple feet inside the door. She’d step in and to her right, make sure no one was hiding behind the door, then go low around the island. The cop behind her had cleared the other rooms. She caught his eye and pointed up the stairs and spun her hand in a twirling motion. She didn’t want any surprises coming at her from behind while the Keystone Cops outside played in the bushes. That would make her and the one gray-haired patrolman in the bunch sitting ducks in the kitchen. He nodded and went up the stairs quietly but two at a time.

  Prole crouched and took three steps through the door and angled right. No one behind the door. Lower still, she crab-walked around the island, finger lightly on the trigger. No one. Unless they were playing a game and edging around the other side of the island to stay just out of sight – and doing it in absolute silence – she was alone in th
e kitchen. Except the dead girl. She stood, holding the gun loosely by her side. Walking over to the girl, she caught movement out the kitchen window and started to bring the gun up. Two young, gaping faces of the junior cops who’d checked outside the house were peering in. She ignored them and went to the girl. No carotid pulse, though she checked only out of habit. More blood on the floor than in the girl. She looked young, and scared. Dirty, too.

  No Cordoza. He didn’t seriously think he could walk away from a murder scene, no matter what his involvement. But it didn’t say much for her theory about Furyk being full of shit that Cordoza had split. She was getting a headache.

  The older cop came up to the kitchen door and shook his head. “No one upstairs. Looks like someone packed kind of quick – dresser drawers open, couple of jars of makeup on the bed and an empty suitcase on the floor. And the rookie says there’s a gun in the bushes by the door – Beretta.”

  Prole knew she didn’t have to tell him to leave it there. She nodded and took out her radio.

  “This is Prole. I’m on the scene at the Wick house. Get me a crime scene unit. And a coroner.” She listened to the dispatcher repeat and confirm the information. Then she keyed the mic again. “And locate Detective Rafael Cordoza. Have him give me a ring when he has a sec.” The dispatcher repeated the instruction and either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the dripping sarcasm in Prole’s voice.

  Furyk gone, Merrill missing, and Cordoza out of sight. Her headache started to limber up, getting ready for the sprint to migraine. She went outside to use her cell phone to call Furyk and chew him out until she ran out of expletives.

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Thoughts of a little rest and relaxation with honey #4 from the Wick patient files were completely out of Brant’s mind. He gunned the cruiser onto the freeway, but didn’t have a destination. The call on the police radio had said a shooting at the Wick house, a girl dead – girl, not a woman or the owner of the house or anything that would have suggested Merrill was dead. The last call asking for a coroner didn’t say anything about a suspect in custody or a cop down. Cordoza must have gotten out. Brant needed to know if Merrill was still there. If she was, then there was a witness who would eventually identify Cordoza and tell what happened, whatever the hell that was. If she weren’t then she was on the run and he had to get hold of her before anyone else did. Maybe she ran to Margolin’s. Brant used another clean cell to dial Margolin’s number but didn’t make it past the first few digits. His regular cell phone rang and he looked at the number. Goddamn Cordoza. He flipped it open.

  “What the fuck do you have to tell me that won’t make me want to rip your goddamned head off?” He could hear Cordoza breathing heavily. He was hurt.

  “Furyk was there. I was gonna get all three. The girl’s dead – she confessed to killing Wick. But Furyk took the woman.”

  Brant almost drove off the side of the freeway, taking a gray Lexus with him. He straightened the wheel. “What do you mean, Furyk’s got her?” It was rhetorical and Cordoza knew it. “Find her, goddamnit, find them both. Kill them both.”

  “He suckered me. I gotta get to the hospital. I was out a few minutes.” Cordoza’s voice was dead, no pain evident other than the irregular breathing.

  “I don’t give a fuck if you’re bleedin’ to death. Get them now.” He killed the connection.

  Brant needed to think. He had to assume the girl told Merrill, and therefore Furyk, that she’d killed Wick. And the reason. So why wouldn’t Furyk just hang around and wait for the cops to show up? If Cordoza had been hurt enough that he couldn’t stop him, Furyk was in control. He had the confession, Cordoza, and the now-innocent framed wife. He just needed to hand it over and let someone else work out all the details.

  Brant cut across three lanes of traffic and took the Hollywood Bowl exit. He needed to get to his office. He knew what Furyk was thinking. Someone else was involved, someone higher than Cordoza. He wouldn’t put himself in the hands of the cops until he’d figured out who was pulling Cordoza’s strings. Furyk didn’t know who it was yet, but he’d keep going until he found out. That would lead to Brant. That was damn near the worst news he could think of. But the one good bit was that it gave Brant a little more time to find and kill Furyk and the woman.

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  There was quiet sobbing coming from the passenger seat. The canopy of trees and smell of ocean salt in the air did nothing to dispel the misery that descended on Merrill. The sad smile had been replaced by emerging horror as she sorted out the pieces of puzzle forced on her this morning. Furyk drove quietly, letting her try to make sense of it.

  They got to Ocean Drive and turned south. Furyk was trying to figure out his next step. He needed Merrill out of the way someplace safe while he got to the bottom of the Wick-Margolin-Cordoza connection. Three pricks who deserved to spend eternity being flayed repeatedly in hell. The best place for Merrill was with Prole, but that was unrealistic. He’d need Prole for other things and ending her career for harboring a murder suspect wasn’t going to be good for the relationship. Furyk’s house was out. A hotel would be okay, if he paid cash up front for a few days and told her to stay put, but he didn’t trust her consistency of behavior in her current state of mind. She needed babysitting. Furyk took out his cell and with one eye on the road flipped through the contact list. He pushed a button and the phone picked up after half a dozen rings. There was a lot of noise in the background, people talking and a car honked.

  “I need a favor.” He waited for the reply, which was simple and clear. He volunteered some extra information. “It’ll be a few days. I’ll be by in twenty minutes.”

  Merrill had caught his tone through her gentle huffing and unfolded a little to look across the car at him for the first time in ten minutes. “Where are we going? Can’t we just go to Perry’s house? I want to be with Cheyenne.”

  Furyk checked the rearview mirror and didn’t see any flashing lights. He turned left on Santa Monica and then a quick right on a small side street lined with businesses that would have been in a strip mall in any other part of town. Parking in front of one of three nail salons visible on the block, he left the motor running and turned to face Merrill.

  “You’ve been through a lot. I know it’s hard, but it’s going to get harder before things get better.” She looked at him through eyes made glassy by tears. She hadn’t changed from the pants she’d worn earlier and the hot chocolate was drying and leaving a stain. She’d managed to run a brush through her hair and it was the only part of her that looked fresh, unsullied, and strong. Furyk noticed how aquiline and delicate her nose was and the quivering lower lip made her look more like a teenager, perhaps her daughter or even the dead girl on the kitchen floor. Furyk wanted to protect her from what she had just heard, the truth about her husband, and the images of Felicia being shot and bleeding to death. Even more, he wanted to protect her from the acute pain he knew was coming in the next days. There would be details about what Carl Wick had been doing and Merrill would be the one to suffer. And that was all assuming Cordoza didn’t get to her and kill her – and him – first. He couldn’t do anything about the emotional suffering that was ahead, but he could keep her alive.

  “Merrill, whatever Carl was doing, Margolin was part of it.” Her eyes widened, as though even now this would come as a shock. “You called him before I got there. He didn’t come over. The man who shot Felicia did.” He let her think about it for a few seconds.

  “But, but Perry…he’s my friend, Carl’s best friend. Why would he…” She stopped herself mid sentence. Her eyes defocused, no longer looking directly into Furyk’s. She was putting the pieces together. “But, he tried to help me…” And then recognition dawned. Her voice was not so small when she said: “He told me I did it. He said…He said I must not have known what I did.” If there had been a hint of surprise, it was replaced by a seed of anger. It was such a quick transition Furyk could not believe there hadn’t been a germ of doubt already
, a part of her that wondered about Margolin. It was a good sign. He needed her strong. It could take more than the few days he’d promised on the phone to figure all this out and that time would be hard on her. Cordoza wouldn’t be the only one trying to find – and silence – them.

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Five minutes after getting the expletive-laced instructions, Cordoza picked up the vibrating PDA with his left hand and steered with his knees. Another text message, with a name and address. The name had an “MD” after it. Cordoza drove to the address, a private clinic on the eastern edge of Santa Monica. There were half a dozen people in the waiting area, a mix of private insurance holders and cash-payers or Medicaid recipients, judging from the clothes and language. Someone must have called ahead because the receptionist was nervously eyeing the door and almost jumped out of her seat when Cordoza came in. To the handful of mutterings and sidelong looks from the waiting patients, he was ushered through the locked door and into the inner sanctum. A girl in dark green scrubs and sneakers led him wordlessly into an examination room at the far end of the hallway.

  The orthopedic surgeon who hurried into the room before the nurse had completely closed the door on her way out had a nervous look on his face that didn’t suggest a very empathic bedside manner. There was no way Cordoza could know that the doctor had a penchant for very young women – if 15 years old qualified as “woman.” He also liked to give them a little something to relax them. Never hurting them, but he liked to take his time and not be interrupted with objections or the need to soothe a bent psyche. He’d gotten a call from Margolin fifteen minutes earlier, the lawyer using a mildly nasty tone of voice without saying the words themselves: take care of the cop who comes in, and do it quickly and quietly. Or else. It was the first time he had felt anything other than shame about his use of Margolin’s services. What he felt was fear, which he couldn’t sweep away or ignore like the shame.