Demolition Angel

by Robert Crais

  “I’ll have to notify Assistant Chief Morgan. Starkey, I’ll want you with me. He might want to see us, and I’m damned well sure he’ll have questions. This is goddamned terrible, a Los Angeles police officer involved in something like this. We’ll have to bring in Dick Leyton. We’re not going to roll over there and arrest one of his people without telling him what’s happening. As soon as I talk to Morgan and Leyton, we’ll get this done.”

  Starkey found herself liking Barry Kelso. She wanted to say something.

  “Lieutenant, I’m sorry.”

  Kelso rubbed at his face.

  “Carol, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. I want to tell you that this is good work, but it doesn’t seem like the thing to say.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  Penance

  Buck didn’t go back to Glendale. He phoned Dick Leyton to tell him that he’d left early for the day and wouldn’t be back. The real reason for the call was to get a sense of what Leyton knew. If Leyton considered Buck a suspect, Buck was going to hire the best damned attorney he could find and ride it out straight down the middle. But Leyton was relaxed and friendly, and Buck was willing to bet the farm that Starkey had kept her suspicions to herself.

  And that’s what he was doing, betting the farm.

  Buck still had almost seven pounds of Modex Hybrid, plus components left over from copycatting Mr. Red’s bomb. He convinced himself that Starkey hadn’t yet gathered enough evidence to make her move, which gave him hope. If he acted fast enough and took her out before she could develop her case, he might still get out of this.

  After he spoke with Leyton, Buck concocted an elaborate list of errands to get Natalie out of the house, then went home. She seemed strained, probably from Starkey’s visit and questions, but he pretended not to notice. He gave her the list, kicked her out, then forced himself to calm down and think it through again. He was desperate, and scared; he knew that desperate and scared men make mistakes.

  When Buck felt composed, and absolutely convinced that killing Starkey was the only way out, he said, “Well, get to it, then.”

  Buck kept the Modex Hybrid and the remaining components in a large Igloo cooler out in the garage. He backed his 4-Runner out to give himself room, then shut the overhead door so no one could see him from the street. He opened the side door that let onto his backyard for air and turned on a utility fan; the Modex sublimated vapors that were toxic.

  Buck pulled the cooler from the high shelf where it was out of Natalie’s reach and brought it to his workbench. The remaining Modex was in a large, nonreactive glass jar. It was dark gray in color and looked like window putty. He wore vinyl gloves as he laid out the components so as not to leave fingerprints, but also to avoid getting the Modex on his skin. The shit could kill you dead as lead just from handling it.

  The sudden voice in Buck’s backyard damn near made him piss his pants.

  “Yo yo yo, whasup, whasup? Anybody home?”

  Buck threw a towel over his bench, and went to the door. He had thought it was a black guy from the voice, but this kid was white.

  “What do you want?”

  “Be lookin’ to earn a little extra bank, my man. Saw the yard was in, shall we say, disarray? Thought I’d offer my landscaping services.”

  “I’ll mow it myself, thanks anyway. Now I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Looks like that ain’t exactly on your immediate agenda, if you see what I’m sayin’. Help a brother who wants to earn a living instead of do crime.”

  Buck’s head began to throb. Now that he looked at him, this kid wasn’t a kid. He looked to be in his late twenties.

  “Help yourself by getting out of here, asshole. I said I was busy.”

  The kid took a step back, but didn’t look scared.

  “Yowza! Guess you be handin’ out walkin’ papers. Feets, do yo stuff!”

  “Are you fuckin’ crazy?”

  “Nah, Mr. Daggett, I’m just tryin’ to have a good time. Sorry I bothered you.”

  Buck caught the name right away.

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “Chinaman across the street told me. I tried to cut his place first, but he told me to come over here. He said your place always looks like shit.”

  “Well, fuck him, too. Now let me get back to work.”

  Buck watched the kid walk away, then went back into his garage, hating the Chinaman across the street. Buck didn’t see the kid come back, didn’t see the hard thing that knocked him to his knees. Even if he had seen it coming, it would not have mattered. It was already too late.

  Buck was never fully unconscious. He knew that something had hit him, and that he was hit twice more after he went down. He saw the kid over him, but he couldn’t raise his arms to protect himself. The kid handcuffed him to the workbench, then disappeared from view.

  Buck tried to speak, but his mouth didn’t work any better than his arms and legs. Buck grew frightened that he was paralyzed, and cried.

  After a while, the kid came back and shook him.

  “You awake?”

  The kid looked into his eyes, then slapped him. The kid had a thin, gaunt face like a ferret. Buck noticed now for the first time that his scalp was very pale; he hadn’t been bald for long.

  “You awake? C’mon, I know I didn’t hit you hard enough to kill you. Get your fuckin’ act together.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “I don’t want your money, dumbass. You should be so lucky, I only wanted your money.”

  Buck’s ears were ringing, a steady high-pitched sound that did not diminish. Once, during a high school baseball game, he had collided with another player and gotten a concussion. He remembered it feeling like this.

  “Then what do you want? You want the truck, the keys are in my pocket. Take it.”

  “What I’m going to take is the rest of this Modex. What I want is to teach you a lesson.”

  Buck wasn’t thinking at his best. It surprised him that this kid made up like some kind of black rapper would know about the Modex, or even what it was.

  “I don’t understand.”

  The kid took Buck’s face in his hands and leaned close.

  “You stole my fucking work, you cocksucker. You pretended to be me. Can you spell … error in judgment?”

  “I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe this will help you understand.”

  The kid went to the other end of the bench. When he came back, he had one of the pipes. Wires led into an open end; the other end had been capped. He waved it under Buck’s nose to let Buck catch the sharp smell of the Modex inside, and in that moment, Buck grew scared.

  “Now do you know who I am?”

  Buck knew, and felt so scared in that moment of knowing that the urine ran out of him in a rush of warmth.

  “Please don’t kill me. Please. Take the fucking Modex and go. Please don’t kill me. I’m sorry I pretended I was you but you see I had to kill that motherfucker who was fucking my wife and—”

  Mr. Red put a hand over Buck’s mouth.

  “Chill. Just be cool. Relax.”

  Buck nodded.

  “You okay now?”

  Buck nodded.

  “Okay. Now listen.”

  Mr. Red sat cross-legged on the hard concrete in front of him, holding the bomb in his lap as if it was a playful kitten.

  “You listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going to kid you about this, I am seriously pissed off you tried to make everyone think it was me who killed that guy, but here’s your shot. You got one shot, and here it is.”

  Buck waited, but Mr. Red was waiting for him to ask.

  “What? What’s my shot?”

  “Tell me what Carol Starkey knows.”

  John walked out to the stolen car he’d left on the street. The Chinaman was nowhere to be seen. He had left Buck at his bench, very much alive, but unconscious. John had splashe
d some water on Daggett and slapped his face to bring him around. When he saw that Buck was waking up, he left.

  John climbed behind the wheel, started his car, and shook his head. It was a hot day on a crappy street in the middle of Shitsville, U.S.A. How could people live like this? John let his car creep down the street as he counted to a hundred. When he reached one hundred, he figured Buck was fully awake.

  That’s when he pressed the silver button.

  Spring Street

  Marzik and Santos phoned their homes, Santos telling his wife and Marzik her mother that they would be late. Starkey could tell from Marzik’s reaction that her mother wasn’t happy about it. After those calls, the three detectives sat at their desks, alone with their thoughts. At one point, Jorge asked if anyone wanted a fresh pot of coffee, but neither Starkey nor Marzik answered. He did not make the coffee.

  Marzik was the first one bored with the wait, and expressed her annoyance.

  “What in hell is taking so long? We don’t need Parker Center to rubber-stamp this thing. Let’s just go pick up the sonofabitch.”

  Santos frowned at her.

  “He wants Morgan to sign off, is all. It’s politics.”

  “Kelso’s such a chickenshit.”

  “Maybe Morgan isn’t there. Maybe he can’t reach Lieutenant Leyton.”

  “Oh, screw that.”

  Starkey had decided to head for the stairwell with a cigarette when Reege Phillips called. The tone of his voice was careful and measured, which immediately put her on edge. She didn’t want Hooker and Marzik to hear.

  Starkey said, “I don’t know that I can talk right now, Reege. Will this keep?”

  “I don’t think so, Carol. You got a problem on your hands.”

  “Ah, can I call you right back?”

  “You want to change phones?”

  “That’s right. I’ve got your number.”

  “Okay. I’m right here.”

  Starkey hung up, told Santos and Marzik she was going for a smoke, and brought her purse. When she was in the stairwell, she called Phillips on her cell phone. Just pressing the numbers left her feeling sick.

  “What do you mean, that I have a problem?”

  “Jack Pell isn’t an ATF agent. He used to be, but not anymore.”

  “That can’t be right. Pell had bomb analysis reports from Rockville. He had a spook at Cal Tech doing work for us.”

  “Just listen. Pell was an ATF field agent working for the Violent Crime Task Force, attached to the Organized Crime Division of the Justice Department. Twenty months ago, he was in a warehouse in Newark, New Jersey, trying to get the goods on some Chinese AKs coming up from Cuba. You read those reports he gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Think Newark.”

  “Mr. Red’s first bomb.”

  “Pell was in that warehouse when it went off. The concussion caused something in his eyes called commotio retinae. You catch it in time, you can fix it with the laser. Pell’s didn’t show up until later, and then it was too late.”

  “What does that mean, too late?”

  “He’s going blind. Way the man explained it is that the retinas are pulling away from his optic nerves, and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. So the Bureau retired him. Now you’re telling me he’s acting like he’s still on the job. You got a rogue agent on your hands, Carol. He’s hunting down the bastard who took his eyes. You call the FO and get them in on this before Pell hurts somebody.”

  Starkey leaned against the wall, feeling numb.

  “Carol? You there?”

  “I’ll take care of it, Reege. Thank you.”

  “You want me to get the office on this?”

  “No. No, I’ll do it. Listen, I’ve gotta go, Reege. We have something here.”

  “You watch out for that guy, Carol. He’s looking to kill that sonofabitch. No tellin’ what he might do. He might even kill you.”

  After she ended the call, Starkey finished her cigarette, then went back into the squad room. She must have looked odd.

  Marzik said, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Finally, Kelso’s door opened and Kelso stepped out. Starkey could see that something was wrong with him, but Marzik was already halfway to the stairs, muttering.

  “It’s about goddamned time.”

  “Beth, wait.”

  Kelso stared at them. He didn’t speak; he didn’t move for the longest time.

  Santos said, “What is it, Lieutenant?”

  Kelso cleared his throat. His jaw worked as if he were trying to make spit.

  “Detectives, the San Gabriel police were notified that an explosion occurred at Buck’s home. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”

  18

  • • •

  By the time they reached Daggett’s home, the San Gabriel Fire Department had the fire out. The garage and the back side of the house were still venting steam, but the Sheriff’s bomb investigators were already walking the scene. Starkey wanted to walk with them, but the commander of the Sheriff’s Bomb Squad refused to clear her onto the site until the body had been removed. Only Kelso was allowed in the rear. Dick Leyton had arrived a few minutes before them.

  Starkey, Marzik, and Santos stood in a tight knot in the front yard, Santos talking to burn off the nervous energy.

  “Do you think he killed himself? That’s what happens when you get close, you know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You hear that a lot with officers. They realize they’re about to take the fall, bang, they kill themselves.”

  Starkey, feeling bad enough, walked away.

  “I wonder if he killed his wife, too.”

  Marzik put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Jorge? Shut the fuck up.”

  Starkey’s first thought had also been suicide, but that was something they might never know unless Daggett left a note. If he didn’t, the rubble would be sifted, the frag collected, the device reconstructed as with any other bomb. They would try to place the moment of detonation and determine if it had been accidental, or by design. Starkey knew it would all be a matter of guesswork.

  Waiting there on the street, Starkey’s thoughts drifted back to Pell. She considered paging him, but didn’t know what she would say if he returned her call. She put it out of her head. She was getting good at that, putting things out of her head.

  After a while, Kelso came up the drive past Buck’s 4-Runner, and waved them to join him.

  “How many bodies?”

  “Just Buck. It looks like Natalie wasn’t home. We don’t yet know if she left before it happened or after, but her car is missing.”

  Starkey felt some of her tension ease, though not much. She had been worried that Buck and Natalie had gone together.

  Kelso looked at Starkey.

  “The thinking now is that it was a suicide. I want you to be ready for that, Carol. We can’t be sure yet, but that’s what it looks like.”

  Marzik said, “Why?”

  “He wrote something on the wall above his workbench. The spray paint is still tacky. We can’t be sure it’s a suicide note, but it could be.”

  Starkey took a deep breath.

  “Does it mention me?”

  “No. All it says is, ‘the truth hurts.’ That’s all it says.”

  The San Gabriel coroner investigators wheeled a gurney bearing a blue plastic body bag to their van. The bag was misshapen and wet.

  Kelso started back down the drive.

  “Come on. We can go back now. I want to warn you all that it’s a mess. His body was badly dislocated. Also, I want you to remember that this is not our crime scene. The Sheriff’s investigators are talking to Dick Leyton now, and they will want to talk to us. Stay close.”

  Santos looked sad.

  “So Carol was right.”

  Marzik frowned at him.

  “Of course she was right, you idiot.”

  “I was hoping that … even with everything we
know, I guess I was hoping she was wrong.”

  Marzik stopped, and waved them on.

  “Screw it. I don’t want to see all that blood. I’m going to stay out here.”

  They walked back along the drive past the firemen and the San Gabriel Bomb Squad. Under other circumstances, at another crime scene, Starkey would have talked to these people, but she ignored them. Dick Leyton was in the backyard with a couple of San Gabriel suits that Starkey took to be Sheriff’s investigators. Kelso and Santos joined them, leaving Starkey alone. She was glad for that. She didn’t want to look at these things, and think the things that she was thinking, and have to talk to anyone. She wished she hadn’t heard all that crap about suicide because now she was feeling guilty about it.

  The drive and the buildings were wet. The firemen were cranking in their hoses, moving in teams around Buck’s 4-Runner and away from the garage. Starkey stepped off the drive to make way for them and felt the water squish up around her shoes. The aluminum garage door had been pulled out of its frame by the fire department. Starkey could see that it had been down at the time of the detonation by the way the aluminum panels were bowed outward. The firemen would have wanted to raise it to get water on the flames, but couldn’t; they had probably set grappling hooks to pull it away. Inside the garage, the Sheriff’s bomb investigators were sifting and photographing the debris exactly as Starkey and her people had done in Silver Lake. The air in the garage was damp, and heavy with the scent of burned wood.

  The spray-painted words were above his bench.

  THE TRUTH HURTS

  They were red.

  “You one of the L.A. people?”

  Starkey showed her badge.

  “Yeah. CCS. You mind if I look?”

  “Just tell us before you touch anything, okay?”

  Starkey nodded.

  A half-moon shape like a jagged crown of splinters was blown out of Buck’s workbench. Wooden shrapnel sprouted from the inner garage walls like porcupine quills. Much of the bench was charred from the fire, but not the area shattered by the blast. Something had hit the far wall and left a red smear. Starkey concentrated on the painted words. THE TRUTH HURTS. It could mean anything or nothing. What truth? The truth that was about to come out? The truth that his wife loved another man? That Pell had lied to Starkey, and used her?