by Kate Gable
It has been almost twenty-four hours since anyone has seen her. The thing is that we can't even put out an Amber Alert or anything like that because we have no idea what car she's possibly traveling in or if she's in one at all.
I'm anxious to get back to Big Bear and to search for her, but I have a job to do here as well.
Whoever did this to this little girl cannot get away.
I take a deep breath before speaking with Captain Medvil. Plastering a casual smile on my face and the I don't really give a damn look, I try to appear like every other cop there.
We discuss the Reynards a little bit and a few deputies mention the fact that their house is 7,000 square feet in Brentwood. It’s estimated to be about fifteen million on Zillow, meaning it’s not your typical rich person's house.
“I had no idea that oral surgeons made that much money,” one of deputies says.
"Why, would you have gone to medical school if you knew that they did?" Someone laughs.
"Yeah. I can just imagine you working on people's teeth. You'd throw up right into their mouth,” another guy jokes.
"Oh, come on now. Don't be like that, that happened just once."
The other guys continue to mock him and I laugh along with everyone. Captain Medvil is the only one who doesn’t.
As I make my way back to my office, I know that there's still so much more information to come in on the Courtney Reynard case: the official medical examiner report, DNA evidence, and fingerprints.
There are just too many unknowns.
With so much time passing and so few clues, I also know a few things that are true for any homicide detective. The first forty-eight hours are imperative.
The vast majority of murderers and suspects in general are arrested within that time period.
After that, the chances of finding out who did it decrease tremendously.
It's hard to know all of these facts because they are things that you almost wish you didn't know.
I wonder sometimes what it's like to go through life without all of these negative statistics in your head.
How many murders go unsolved every year in Los Angeles?
How many people are killed every year in the United States?
How many women are raped?
How many children are molested?
How many parents never come home?
I try not to dwell on it, this is my line of work after all, but it's hard to put all of that aside when your sister is missing.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t help but wonder, is she going to become one of these statistics?
11
"Hey, what are you doing here?" a familiar voice asks somewhere in front of me. I look up from my phone.
It’s the guy from the other night, Luke, what though?
I can't remember his last name. He walks over to me and gives me a confident hug.
"It's nice to see you," I say, pulling away.
"Yeah, you, too. Look at you all dressed up."
"Kind of a work thing," I mumble, looking down at my gray pencil skirt.
Luke asks me if I want to grab a cup of coffee.
Of course I do, but I hesitate. I have a lot of paperwork to get through and I have a lot of thoughts to push away about Violet and calls to make about her whereabouts.
But looking into his eyes and the way that he tilts his head while his hair falls into his face, I can't say no.
"Okay, ten minutes, twenty tops. Then I have to get back.”
"Of course," Luke says with a casual shrug. "I've got work to do as well."
I like the swagger and the confidence in his voice. It's so easy and casual without much pretense.
We walk downstairs to the coffee bar on the corner. This is a place where all the cops go unless you want to drink the stale lukewarm crap they have inside.
We get in line behind a few uniformed officers. Luke stands so close to me that I can feel his breath on the back of my head, and I like it.
"So, what are you doing here?" I ask, realizing that I don't even know where he works. “Are you stalking me?"
"Ha." He laughs. "You wish."
The line is quite long with at least five people ahead of us.
I don’t mind. It gives us more time to chat and get to know each other. I've texted him a little bit, small details here and there about my sister, but this is the first time that we have really talked since that night that we were together.
"What's going on with Violet?"
I don't know if he's pivoting the conversation to something else or avoiding talking about himself, but I take the bait.
"Nothing new. I talked to a few of Violet’s friends, this guy she liked. I don't know. They seemed kind of suspicious, but who the heck knows with teenagers?"
"Yeah, they're not like regular perpetrators, huh?" He laughs. "I don't have much experience interviewing thirteen year olds, thank God, but I get the sense that teenagers in general are kind of like sociopaths. Egomaniacal, self-centered, impossible to break."
"What's his dad do?" Luke asks.
"He's a prosecutor."
"Nope. Nada."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, first of all, his father is an attorney. Kids whose fathers are lawyers all... Okay, let me put it this way. All kids are full of crap, but kids whose fathers are attorneys are so full of crap, they need plumbers.”
"I don't think so," I say, shaking my head.
"How many kids do you know?"
"I don't know, a few. My sister," I admit.
Though I guess she is really the only one.
“Well, I have four brothers."
"Four brothers?" I gasp.
"Yep. I'm the youngest. Lucky number five. My parents stopped trying for a girl after that. They figured boys is all they're going to get."
"Wow." I laugh. "Surprised they didn't stop earlier."
“My point is I grew up with a lot of teenagers,” he says, shaking his head. "They were older than me, but I saw how they operated. They lied. They cheated. They did anything they could to get away with whatever they wanted."
“Maybe you're right. I don't know. I was the oldest and I sort of snuck out a little bit here and there. Got into a lot of fights with my mom. This kid, Neil, he was different. He was so confident. So cocky. It's like the world owes him something. You know?"
"I know exactly the type. Usually, the more popular they are at the younger age, the worse their attitude is. Especially if no one at home puts them in their place.”
“You should've seen this guy's house. It’s a mansion."
"You've been to places like that around here, right?" he asks. "I mean, we are talking about LA."
“But people here work in the movies. Big Bear is a small town, mainly a tourist destination, a lot of second homes, that kind of thing. I grew up there. I don't remember anyone I knew at that school who had a house like that. That's bound to go to your head."
I look at his shoulders. Sometimes with certain people, you can tell that that's where they carry their tension. It's like the whole world focuses itself right there below the neck in between the shoulder blades and nothing is ever going to change that.
With Luke, it seems a little bit different.
There's a casualness to him that's difficult to describe.
It's like nothing bothers him, but in a good way.
He's not egocentric or arrogant.
Just still.
At peace.
Someone who knows who he is.
"Do you surf?" I ask.
He tilts his head to one side. I now know that's a move of his. A little bit to the side and a little bit forward to get my attention.
"How do you know?" he asks.
I shrug and shake my head a little bit. Our eyes meet and he doesn't look away.
I want to, but I can't.
The line moves up.
One more person walks away with a cup.
Our time is running out.
"Do you?"
"Do I what?" I ask.
"Do you surf?"
"No. I've never been."
"You live in LA and you've never been surfing?"
"No.” I laugh, shaking my head.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously, of course. Why would I lie to you about that?"
"Just seems kind of odd," he says. “Well, that settles it. I guess I'll have to take you. You free tomorrow morning?"
"Oh, yes, that's right," I say. "That's why I've never been because surfing always seems to involve some sort of ungodly hour of five o'clock in the morning."
"That's when the waves are the best," he says, spreading his arms before me as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Okay. Well, when I'm not working at five in the morning, I am sleeping. There's no way I'm going into that cold ocean so early."
"What about Saturday in the afternoon when it's a high of sixty?"
"The water's still going to be crazy cold," I say.
It barely ever gets over sixty degrees. That's why I never even really go swimming in the summertime.
“C’mon, I'll get you a suit. You’ll be fine if you move around.”
I shake my head.
"Well, one of these days you're going to have to go."
"Oh, really?" I ask.
"Yes, really. It's something I love to do. If I'm going to be in your life, I want you to try it out."
That takes me by surprise. There's an assumption there that he wants me to be in his life.
There's an assumption there that he wants me to share something he loves. You know what? I kind of like those assumptions.
It's been a while since I’ve felt this seen and this wanted.
The line moves again and now it's his turn to put in an order. I ask for a latte and he asks for a cup of black coffee with nothing in it.
I insist on paying, but he refuses to accept it. I like that, too.
We don't say anything for a few minutes while we wait for the barista to make our drinks.
Then he turns to me and says, "I never answered your question."
"Which one?"
"The one from before about what I do for a living. Why I'm here.”
"Yeah, that's right," I say, grabbing my cup and taking a sip.
It's warm and soothing and the burst of caffeine immediately puts me at ease. Suddenly a pang of nervousness comes on. It's difficult to explain but sometimes that happens in the afternoons right after I have my second cup of coffee of the day.
I crave it. I wait for it.
When I drink it, my body begins to tingle.
Maybe it's that or maybe it's the fact that I'm talking to Luke.
"I work for the FBI," Luke says. "I'm an agent."
“Oh…okay.”
"I'm working on a case here. It’s a joint task force."
I nod. I don't know why it feels so weird that he said that, but for some reason it does.
"Do you know Patrick?"
"Patrick Flannery?" Luke asks.
I nod.
"Yeah. He's one of my good buddies. Why?"
"I'm really good friends with his fiancée, Sydney."
"Oh, yeah. Work has been crazy this year so I haven't met her yet. I was supposed to today. We're both here on assignment."
His drink is finally ready. I'm not sure why a simple black coffee took so long, but when he grabs it, we move out of the line and toward the front door.
He takes a few steps ahead of me and opens it wide. Following him, I notice that we're both walking slowly to make this moment last a little longer.
When we get to the crosswalk, there are two uniformed officers waiting for the light.
Their radios start to blare: "Armed suspect, armed and dangerous suspect. Just robbed a bank. Headed your way on foot, southbound on Mercer and Pike."
It feels surreal. I look up at the names of the streets on the corner. We’re at Mercer and Pike.
Across the street someone runs out of the bank building, fleeing with a gun in his hand. He runs up to an old beat-up station wagon.
The cops in front of us, immediately take cover behind their patrol car, open the doors, and point their weapons in his direction.
Luke and I run up to an SUV where we get a better visual on the suspect.
The suspect tries the station wagon door on one side and then on the other, but they're both locked.
I don't know if this car is his and he had just locked himself out or maybe he's just desperately trying to find a car that he can take, but he has no luck.
Kneeling down behind the SUV, I grab for my weapon and hold it steadily in one hand.
I peer over the car to see what he's doing. There's some money in a bag next to him.
When he turns toward me, I see that half of his face is covered in red, but it's not blood. It's from the dye pack that probably blew up in his face.
Two vehicles pull up, not too far away from him, just as the suspect starts loading his weapon.
He sits with his back against the station wagon.
"We have to stop him,” I whisper to Luke.
He nods.
Why is he doing this? I say to myself.
“LAPD!” I yell to identify myself. “Put your hands up and no one's going to get hurt.”
I don't have a megaphone, but I project as loud as I can.
"Put your hands up. You're surrounded. Do not load that weapon,” I add.
The bank robber looks up startled, looking in the direction of the uniformed officers and their vehicles, probably figuring that the commands are coming from them.
"Drop the weapon!” I yell again. "Do it now."
I repeat myself multiple times, starting to feel desperate. I know what’s coming if he doesn’t listen, but he refuses to acknowledge me.
Time is running out.
The suspect has dirty hair and bewildered eyes. He doesn't look a day over twenty-five. He's small in stature with narrow shoulders and somewhat wide hips.
He sits with his back against the station wagon, fixated on the officers that have positioned themselves at the top of a hill. They're too far away for him to shoot, but I don't think he knows this.
He's nervous. He's afraid.
That's the worst kind of suspect to have.
At this point he's like a caged animal who will do anything to get away.
The problem is that everyone here knows that he won't.
Time starts to move in slow motion. Just like I've been taught at the police academy, I look for twitching.
I watch his body language and he appears to be disconnected from what's going on.
One moment he's nervous and out of control and the next he is calmly turning his gun cylinder one click at a time and placing bullets into each slot.
One, two, three, four.
I have to shoot him.
I have to stop him, but I still hope that he will give up he doesn't.
Instead, he snaps the drum back into place and locks it.
Now he's ready.
I don't have my radio with me, but I keep yelling out to him to surrender.
He seems to hear me and looks around, but he seems to think that the only people here are the visible ones in uniforms.
Then something changes.
"Put your hands up. You're surrounded," I say, staying careful not to allow my voice to break and to remain calm, but forceful.
Suddenly, we pass a moment of no return and then he turns into a dead man walking.
He can still surrender. He can still put down the gun and put his hands up and the cops may follow protocol. But tensions are rising.
He doesn't.
You know that moment in the movie you’ve seen before when you wait for some moment to come up, but it’s not here yet? You know what's going to happen and you can't do anything to stop it?
This is just like that.
The suspect doesn’t put his hands up. He’s going to try to shoot his way out. What he do
esn’t know is that it won’t work.
I know that he’s going to die and there's not a single thing that I can do to stop it.
The suspect squats behind the car.
His elbows rest on his thighs.
He grasps the revolver with both hands as if it's his lifeline. But in reality, it's not.
The tension in his face starts to dissipate. It's like he's coming to terms with what’s about to happen.
I keep hanging onto a glimmer of hope that maybe he can still live.
But then he stands up. Instead of just shooting and keeping cover, he stands up and fires a shot at the cops in the car.
He doesn't hide.
Without a second thought, everyone empties their clips into him, center mass.
This is the way we are taught to deal with armed suspects in the academy. You always shoot into the center of the chest. He knows this and it even looks like this is what he wants.
I don't know whose bullets hit him and whose don’t, but a moment later, the suspect folds in half and falls onto the ground, unceremoniously and without a tinge of drama.
One moment, he’s there.
The next, he’s gone.
I hate the fact that he did that. I hate the fact that we all shot him. I hate the fact that I'll remember this moment for the rest of my life; the sound of the gunfire whizzing down the empty street.
For a moment, everything moves in slow motion and then the world quickly comes back.
People yell, run, check vital signs while pointing their weapons in his face.
He's been shot and he's not coming back.
Someone flips him over and we all stare at the face of the man that we shot, his face still covered in red paint from the money that he stole from the bank.
I don't know why he took it and I don't know what he meant to do with it.
I don't know why at the end, he decided to just stand up and let us take his life.
Everyone emptied their clips into him, but we did it because he wanted us to do it.
If he didn’t want this, he would have taken cover.
If he didn’t want this, he would have shot into the air.
I’ll probably never know the answers to these questions.
But Internal Affairs will definitely have a lot for me, and that's going to make it really hard to go back up to Big Bear to find my sister.
