Voodoo River (v0.99)

by Robert Crais

  Gibbs said, “Use your cell phone. You put it on the radio, we’ll have media all over us. Tommy, see if there’s anything on the wire.”

  Angela Rossi walked with Tomsk and Bishop back to their units. Fine soil and foxtails had worked down into her running shoes and between her toes, so she sat in the backseat of her radio car and cleaned her feet widi a Handiwipe before changing back into her Max Avantes. While she sat in the car, Tomsk and Bishop stood apart from each other in the overlook’s parking lot, each talking into their respective cell phones.

  By the time Rossi finished cleaning her feet and had rejoined Gibbs at the top of the slope, both Tomsk and Bishop were off their phones. Tomsic said, “Nothing on the board about a Susan Martin.”

  Bishop said, “I called the boss and notified the coroner. Criminalists are on the way, and the boss is coming out.” The boss was the detective-captain who oversaw the Westside detectives. When he reached the scene, everyone knew he’d decide whether Gibbs would keep the case or it would be reassigned to someone else. Gibbs knew that because of Mr. Martin’s stature, the case would almost certainly be assigned to one of the elite robbery-homicide units downtown. He had no problem with that.

  Gibbs said, “Okay, we’d better notify Mr. Martin and see what he says.” He looked at the Westec guy. “You know where they live?”

  “Sure. I’ll take you over, you want.”

  Gibbs started for his car. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Bishop was shaking his head. “We’d better stick around for the boss, Line.”

  Tomsic said, “Angle and I’ll go.”

  Angela Rossi later said that if she’d known where it was going to lead, she would have shot Tomsic right there.

  Dan Tomsic and Angela Rossi followed the Westec guy east along Mulholland to Benedict, then south down through the canyon into a lush winding world of million-dollar homes and Mercedes convertibles. Most of the homes were new and modern, but the Westec guy pulled off the road in front of a Mediterranean mansion that could have been a hundred years old. A big mortar wall with an ornate iron gate protected the mansion from the street, the wall laced by delicate ivy with tiny, blood-red leaves. The wall was cracked and crumbling beneath the ivy, but you could see the cracks only if you took your time and looked between the vines. A video camera was mounted in a Plexiglas box on the wall, and a gate phone stood to the left of the drive so you could identify yourself before being buzzed in. Tomsk figured the grounds for four or five acres, and the house beyond for maybe twenty thousand square feet. Tomsk and his wife and four children were squeezed into an twenty-two hundred square foot cracker box in Simi Valley, but those were the breaks. Anyone could be a cop, but it took real talent to serve bad food in an overpriced restaurant.

  They were getting out of the car when Angie said, “The gate’s open.”

  The big wrought iron gate was open maybe nine or ten inches. You didn’t live behind walls and gates and video cameras, then leave the front gate open so that any stray goofball or passing psycho could come inside and make himself at home. Tomsk remembers that his first thought on seeing the open gate was that they would find a body inside.

  They went to the gate and pressed the button on the call box twice, but they got no answer. Angie said, “We don’t need to wait for a warrant, do we?”

  Tomsk said, “Shit.” He pushed at the gate and went through.

  The Westec guy said, “We can’t just walk in, can we?” He looked nervous. “I’ll call the office and they can ring the house.”

  Tomsk ignored him, and Rossi followed Tomsk toward the house.

  The drive was hand-laid Mexican pavers and had probably cost more than Tomsk’s house, his two cars, and the quarter interest he owned in a Big Bear Lake cabin combined. The mansion itself was built of mortar and rough-hewn wooden beams and was finished with an ancient Spanish tile roof. A healthy growth of ivy covered the ground along the east side of the drive, nestling up to a couple of monstrous podocarpus trees before continuing around a four-car garage. Each car had its own door, and the whole effect was more that of a stable than a garage. A large fountain sat just off the front entry, trickling water.

  Tomsk thought that it looked like the kind of house that Errol Flynn might’ve owned. His wife would love the place, but Tomsk knew that most of the old stars, just like most of the new stars, were perverts and scumbags, and if you knew the things that went on in places like this you wouldn’t be so thrilled with being here. Normal people didn’t go into the movie business. Movie people were shitbirds with serious emotional problems who kept their secret lives hidden. Just like most lawyers and all politicians.

  Tomsk completely believed this, probably because everything he’d seen in almost diirty years on the job confirmed it. Of course, Tomsic had never in his thirty years shared what he knew with his wife because he didn’t want to rain on her parade. It was easier to let her think he was a grump.

  Nothing seemed amiss. No bodies were floating in the fountain and no cars were parked crazily on the front lawn. The massive front door was dosed and appeared undamaged. A large ornate knocker hung in the center of the door, but there was also a bell. Tomsic pressed the button, then used the knocker. Loud. The Westec guy came running up behind them. “Hey, take it easy. You’re gonna break it” His face was white.

  Angie said, “Stay back, okay? We don’t know what we have here.”

  Tomsic glanced at Angie and shook his head. Fuck-in’ Westec geek, worried about losin’ the account. Angie rolled her eyes.

  Tomsic slammed at the door two more times without getting an answer and was starting back to the car when the door opened and Theodore “Teddy” Martin blinked out. Martin was a medium-sized man, a little shorter than average, with pale, delicate skin. He was unshaven and drawn, with hollow, red-rimmed eyes. Tomsic says diat he would’ve bet that the guy had spent most of the night blasted on coke or crystal meth. “Mr. Martin?”

  Martin nodded, his head snapping up and down. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and no shirt.

  His torso was soft and undeveloped and covered with a thick growth of fine hair. He squinted against the bright morning sun. “Yeah, sure. What do you want?”

  Both Tomsic and Angela Rossi later testified that Tomsk badged him and identified himself as a detective with the Los Angeles police department. Angela Rossi noted that Teddy Martin never looked at the badge. He kept his eyes on Tomsic and blinked harder as if something were in his eyes. Angela Rossi thought at the time that he might have allergies. Tomsic said, “Mr. Martin, does a woman named Susan Martin live here with you?”

  When Tomsic asked the, question, Angela Rossi says that Teddy Martin took a single sharp breath and said, “Oh, my Christ, they killed her, didn’t they?”

  People say the damnedest things.

  Tomsic took Rossi aside, gave her his cell phone, and told her to call Gibbs and tell him to get over here. Rossi walked out to the drive and made the call. When she returned to the house, Tomsic and Teddy Martin and the Westec geek were inside, Tomsic and Martin sitting on an antique bench in the entry. Teddy Martin was blubbering like a baby. “I did everything they said. I did everything, and they said they’d let her go. Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus, tell me this isn’t happening.”

  Tomsic was sitting very close to Martin and his voice was soft. He could make it soft whenever he wanted to calm people. “You’re saying she was kidnapped?”

  Martin sucked great gulps of air as if he couldn’t breathe. “Christ, yes, of course she was kidnapped.”

  He put his face in his hands and wailed. “I did everything they said. I gave them every nickel. They said they’d let her go.”

  Angela Rossi said, “You gave someone money?”

  Martin waved his hands, like a jumble of words were floating around him and he had to grab hold of the ones he wanted to use. “Haifa million dollars. Just like they said. I did everything exactly the way they said. They promised they’d let her go. They promised.”

  Tom
sic gently took Teddy’s wrists and pushed his hands down. He said, “Tell me what happened, Mr. Martin. You want to tell me what happened? Can you do that?”

  Martin seemed to regain control of himself and rubbed at his eyes. He said, “I came home Thursday night and she was gone. Then this guy calls and says he’s got Susan and he puts her on. I think it was around eight o’clock.”

  Rossi distinctly remembers asking, “You spoke with her?”

  “She was crying. She said she couldn’t see anything and then the guy came back and he told me that if I didn’t give them the five hundred thousand they’d kill her. I could hear her screaming. I could hear her cry-ing.”

  Tomsic said, “Did you recognize this man’s voice?”

  “No. No, I asked him who he was and he said I should call him James X.”

  Tomsic glanced at Rossi and raised his eyebrows. “James X?”

  “He said they were watching the house. He said they would know if I called the police and they would kill her. Oh, Jesus, I was so scared.” Teddy Martin stood, talcing deep breaths and rubbing his stomach as if it hurt. “He said I should get the money and he would call tomorrow and tell me what to do with it.”

  Angie said, “Tomorrow was yesterday?”

  Martin nodded. “That’s right. Friday. I got the money just like he said. All in hundreds. He wanted hundreds. Then I came back here and waited for his call.”

  Tomsic said, “You just walked into the bank and got five hundred thousand dollars?”

  Teddy Martin snapped him an angry look. “Of course not. My business manager arranged it. He cashed bonds. Something like that. He wanted to know why I wanted the money and I told him not to ask.”

  Rossi saw Tomsic frown. Tomsic prompted Martin to continue. “Okay. So you got the money, then came back here to wait.”

  Martin nodded again. “I guess it was around four, something like that, when he called. He told me to put the money in a garbage bag and bring it to a parking lot just off Mulholland at the four-o-five. They have a little lot there for people who carpool. He told me that there was a dumpster, and I should put the money into the dumpster, then go home. He said they would give me exactly twelve minutes to get there, and if I was late they’d know I was working with the police and they’d kill Susan. They said I should just drop the money and leave, and that after I was gone they’d pick up the money and count it and if everything was okay they’d let Susan go. They said it probably wouldn’t be until nine or ten with the counting.” He sat again and started rocking. “I did everything just like they said and I’ve been waiting all night. I never heard from them again. I never heard from Susan. When you rang the bell I thought you were her.” Teddy Martin put his face in his hands and sobbed. “I made it in the twelve minutes. I swear to God I made it. I was driving like a maniac.”

  Tomsic told Angie to take the cell phone again, call Gibbs, and this time tell him to have someone check the dumpster. She left, and Tomsic stayed with Martin and the Westec guy. Rossi was gone for only four or five minutes, but when she returned she looked burned around the edges. He said, “You get Gibbs?”

  She didn’t answer the question. Instead, she said, “Dan, may I see you, please?”

  Tomsic followed her outside to the ivy alongside the expensive Mexican drive. She took out her pen, pushed aside some leaves, and exposed a ball peen hammer clotted with blond hair and bits of pink matter. Tomsic said, “I’ll be damned.”

  Rossi said, “I was just looking around when I saw it. The handle was sticking up out of the ivy.”

  Tomsic stared at the hammer for several seconds, noticing that a single black ant was crawling in the pink matter. Tomsic made the same whistling sound that he’d made at the Stone Canyon overlook when he’d seen the body. Angela Rossi then said, “He killed her, didn’t he, Dan?”

  Lincoln Gibbs and Pete Bishop turned into the drive as she said it. Dan Tomsk, who had a million years on the job and whose opinion as a professional cynic almost everyone valued, glanced at the mansion and said, “The sonofabitch killed her, ail right, but now we have to convict him.”

  “Hey, we’ve got this guy, Dan! He’s ours!”

  Dan Tomsic stared at her with the disdain he reserved for shitbirds, defense attorneys, and card-carrying members of the ACLU. He said, “It’s easier to cut off your own goddamned leg than convict a rich man in this state, detective. Haven’t you been around long enough to know that?”

  It was the last thing that Dan Tomsic said to her that day.

  Susan Martin’s murder made the evening news, as did the events that followed.

  I was able, months later, to piece together the events of that Saturday morning from police reports, participant interviews, court testimony, and newspaper articles, but I couldn’t tell you what I was doing when I heard, or where I was or who I was with. It didn’t seem important.

  I did not think, nor did I have reason to believe, that Susan Martin’s murder and everything that grew from it would have such a profound and permanent impact upon my life.

  Robert Crais was born in Louisiana, and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. He is the author of six Elvis Cole novels, The Monkey’s Raincoat, Stalking the Angel, Lullaby Town, Free Fall, Voodoo River and Sunset Express.