by Chris Carter
‘Wow, that’s a bullshit, by-the-book, detective’s answer, if I’ve ever heard one.’ Stokes used a small wooden stick to stir his coffee. ‘Wait a second. You think this asshole’s gonna strike again? Please tell me you’re not here to tell me to be careful.’
‘No, I’m not here to tell you that, but it wouldn’t hurt if you stayed alert.’
Stokes laughed out loud. A gritty, throaty laugh. ‘What do you suggest I do, detective? Take some police protection? Buy a bigger gun?’ He leaned forward as much as his stomach would allow, and opened his suit jacket just enough for Hunter to see his shoulder-holstered gun. ‘Let him come. I’m ready for him.’ He sat back and regarded Hunter for a heartbeat. ‘I hadn’t kept in contact with Andy as much as I should have. I’m not with the South Bureau anymore. Got transferred to the West Bureau, Hollywood Division, after my divorce.’
‘When was that?’
‘Seven years ago. A year after Andy got shot. But tell me something. Andy was an active guy. He wasn’t on the field anymore, and he wasn’t as fit as he used to be, the bullet through his lung made sure of that, but he was no pushover. He was also one of those guys who was always on the lookout, you know what I mean? Wary of everyone. And I know he always packed. How did a single perp get to him like that? Ambush him inside his boat?’
Hunter sat back and crossed his legs. ‘No. He posed as a mechanic.’
Fifty-Two
Garcia was an early riser. He always got to the RHD before most, but this morning he’d gotten to his desk a lot earlier than usual. He wasn’t an insomniac like Hunter, but no one can really control their thoughts, or what their subconscious will throw at them once they close their eyes. Last night, the images that lay hidden behind Garcia’s eyelids were enough to scare sleep away for most of the night.
He did his best not to wake his wife up, but despite his lying soundless and motionless, Anna could sense her husband’s uneasiness as if it were crawling up her skin. She always could.
Garcia had met Anna Preston as a freshman in high school. Her unusual beauty captivated many boys, but it mesmerized Garcia, and he fell in love with her almost immediately. As a kid, Garcia was quiet and very shy. It took him ten months to gather the courage to walk up to Anna in a school dance and stammer the words – ‘Would you . . . umm . . . li . . . like to dance . . . ?’
‘Yes,’ she replied with a smile that made his legs wobble.
‘I mean . . . with me . . . would you like to dance with me . . . ?’
Her smile widened. ‘Yes, I’d love that.’
While on the dance floor, swinging awkwardly to a slow song, Anna whispered into Garcia’s ear.
‘What took you so long?’
Garcia pulled his chin from her shoulder and looked into Anna’s hazel-honey eyes. ‘What?’
‘Five school dances. This is the fifth school dance this year. What took you so long to ask me?’
Garcia tilted his head to one side and said tentatively. ‘I . . . like to keep the ladies waiting?’
They both laughed.
They started dating that night.
Garcia proposed three years later, straight after their graduation.
When Garcia became a detective for the LAPD, he made a promise to himself never to bring home any of the grotesque world his profession took him to. To never, ever discuss his day with Anna. Not because it was against protocol, but because he loved her too much, and he would never stain her thoughts with the images and the reality of his every day. He had never broken that promise.
Late last night, while in bed, Anna pulled herself closer to Garcia and whispered in his ear.
‘If you ever wanna talk. You know I’ll always be here. No matter what.’
He faced her and gently swept a lock of hair from her face. ‘I know.’ He smiled. ‘Everything is fine.’ He kissed her lips.
Anna placed her head on his chest and closed her eyes. ‘I love you,’ she said.
Garcia started stroking her hair. ‘I love you too.’ Sleep never came.
Garcia sat facing the pictures board. His attention mostly on the photograph of the shadow image cast by the second sculpture. ‘What the hell is he trying to tell us?’
‘I asked myself that same question all night long,’ Alice said, standing behind him.
Garcia jumped in his chair. He hadn’t noticed her entering the room. ‘Wow,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘You’re up early.’
‘Or late, depends on how you look at it.’ She placed a few folders on her desk.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’
‘I didn’t want to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes my brain cooked up a new nightmare.’
Garcia made a face as if he knew exactly how she felt.
She picked up one of the folders she’d brought in with her and handed it to Garcia.
‘What’s this?’
‘Prison files and visitation records for Alfredo Ortega and Ken Sands.’
Garcia’s eyes widened. ‘Really? I didn’t even know the request had been sanctioned already.’
‘That’s one of the perks of having the DA, the Mayor of Los Angeles, and the Chief of Police so keen to see an investigation resolved. Things move a lot faster. They were faxed to my office at the crack of dawn today.’
‘Have you been through them already?’
Alice used both hands to tuck her loose hair behind her ears. ‘I have, yes.’
Garcia’s eyes dropped to the folders on his lap.
‘I read fast.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve highlighted a few points.’ She thought better of her words. ‘Actually, quite a few. Start with the blue folder, Alfredo Ortega’s file. As you’ll remember, he went to prison eleven years before Ken Sands.’
Garcia noticed a new quirk in Alice’s voice. ‘And I can tell you’ve found something.’
‘Wait until you read both files.’ She sat at the edge of her desk with a satisfied look on her face. ‘You’ll have to read it to believe it.’
Fifty-Three
Detective Seb Stokes paused midway through a long sip of his coffee and returned the mug to the table. A teardrop blob of cream now sat on the tip of his round nose. An almost perfect fluffy white mustache contoured his top lip.
‘A mechanic?’ he said, using a paper napkin to wipe the cream off his face. ‘You got the fucker on CCTV?’
‘No, CCTV wasn’t working,’ Hunter replied in an even voice.
‘It fucking never is when you need it. So how do you figure the killer posed as a mechanic?’
‘Last night I found out that there was some sort of oil leak with Nashorn’s boat’s inboard engine. He was supposed to leave on his usual two-week sailing trip the day he was murdered. My guess is that he probably noticed the problem while doing his final check-through, and knew he couldn’t sail off with a faulty engine. Too risky.’
‘Yeah, that would be the Andy I know. He was always very thorough. And the one thing he wasn’t was careless. Have you checked with the marina? Do they have a register of mechanics?’
‘I’ve checked.’ Hunter sipped his coffee. ‘They don’t have a mechanic station. What they do have is a list of mechanics they recommend. Nashorn never contacted the marina’s admin office asking for a mechanic’s name. But most boat owners already have a mechanic they trust anyway.’
‘Did Andy?’
Hunter nodded. ‘A guy called Warren Donnelly. I spoke with him last night. He said he was never contacted by Nashorn about any engine-oil leak.’
‘So you’re thinking that the killer tampered with the engine before Andy got to his boat,’ Stokes said, reading Hunter’s expression. ‘Maybe even a day or two before.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Then all he had to do was hang around somewhere close, observing, waiting for the right moment to offer his services.’
‘That’s the theory we’re looking at,’ Hunter agreed.
‘But why not just hide inside the boat cabin and wait for Andy to come in? Why complicate things by go
ing through all the mechanic-scenario crap?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Hunter admitted. ‘Maybe because it was a small boat. The cabin was even smaller. There was no place for anyone to hide. Nashorn would’ve noticed a stranger’s presence even before boarding the boat. The killer would’ve lost the upper hand – no surprise factor.’
‘And Andy was still a cop,’ Stokes said, leaning back on his chair and running a hand over his rumbling belly. ‘And a good one. At the slightest sign of a problem, he would’ve reached for his gun and been on high alert.’
Hunter nodded again. ‘Nashorn was a big and strong guy, obviously able to handle himself. Maybe the killer knew that getting into any sort of fight with him wasn’t a good idea. Things could’ve gone really wrong. And this killer doesn’t take unnecessary risks.’
Stokes started chewing on his bottom lip. ‘So the killer needed to be invited onto the boat. That way Andy wouldn’t have been suspicious. Once onboard, an opportunity to subdue Andy would’ve certainly presented itself.’
‘Judging by the blood splatter, and the location where his teeth were found, it looks like Nashorn was crouching down in front of the engine pit. Maybe the killer asked him to have a look at something, or hold something in place while he grabbed a tool from his bag.’
‘Teeth?’
‘Nashorn received a blow to the face. Shattered his jaw and caused him to lose three of his teeth.’
The waitress returned with Stokes’s breakfast. ‘Are you sure I can’t get you anything?’ she asked Hunter.
‘No thanks, I’m fine.’
‘OK, let me know if you change your mind.’ The waitress gave Hunter a charming wink before turning on the balls of her feet and walking away again.
Hunter gently scratched the bullet-wound scar on his right triceps. Though it was over two years old, sometimes it still itched like mad. ‘Whoever this killer is,’ he said, ‘he had a lot of hate towards Nashorn. And that’s why I’m here. You worked with him. You were part of the same division. Can you think back to any of the cases you investigated together, anyone who comes to mind who you think would be capable of something like this?’
Stokes cut a piece off his Spanish omelet and held it as if it were a slice of pizza. ‘After we talked on the phone last night, I knew that question would be coming my way. I gave it some thought. And the only motherfucker I can think of is Raul Escobedo.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Serial rapist. Convicted for attacking three women in Lynwood Park and Paramount in the space of eight months. The truth is, we think he attacked and raped closer to ten victims, but only three testified. Sadistic fucker too. Liked to rough ’em up real good before doing his business. We caught him because he made a mistake without knowing it.’
‘Which was?’ Hunter’s interest grew.
‘You see, Escobedo was born right here in LA, but his parents were from a small state in Mexico called Colima.’
‘Home to the Colima volcano.’
‘That’s right. Did you know that already?’
Hunter nodded.
‘Huh, I had to look that up. Anyway, Escobedo’s parents immigrated to the US before his mother became pregnant with him. They came from a small town called Santa Inés. Though Escobedo grew up in Paramount, in his house they only spoke Spanish. His problem was, people from Santa Inés speak with a distinct accent. I can’t tell the difference, but there you go.’ Stokes had another bite of his omelet. ‘He had never been to his parent’s hometown, but Escobedo picked up the Santa Inés accent like a native. And that’s what fucked him. His mistake was he liked to talk dirty while raping his victims. The last woman he raped was from Las Conchas, which is the next town along from Santa Inés.’
‘She recognized his accent,’ Hunter said.
‘She did better than that.’ Stokes chuckled. ‘Escobedo used to work for the US postal service as a cashier. Two weeks after the attack, this last victim was staying with a friend in South Gate. It was the week before Mother’s Day in Mexico, so they went down to their local post office to post a card to her friend’s mother. Lo and behold, Escobedo was the one who served them. As soon as the woman heard his voice, she started shivering and all, but she did good. She didn’t lose her cool. Instead of panicking and scaring him away, she left the post office, found a payphone, and got back to us. We put a sting operation on him and boom – three weeks later we caught him red-handed, just about to rape someone else. Andy and I were the detectives who arrested him.’ Stokes returned to his coffee and Hunter sensed his hesitation. There was something he wasn’t telling him.
‘What happened with the arrest?’
Stokes put down the Spanish omelet slice he was holding, brought a napkin to his mouth and assessed Hunter from across the table. ‘From cop to cop?’
Hunter gave Stokes a confident nod. ‘From cop to cop.’
‘Well, we roughed him up a little when we caught him.’
‘Roughed him up?’
‘You know how it is, man. When everything went down, adrenalin was pumping like bad blood. Andy got to him first. Escobedo had dragged this 18-year-old girl into a disused Salvation Army building in Lynwood. Andy always had a temper on him, and his fuse . . .’ Stokes twisted his mouth to one side and followed the movement with his head. ‘Simply non-existent. He used to get shit from our captain all the time for losing his head. He wasn’t exactly a loose cannon, but he was pretty borderline, you know what I’m saying? When he got to the building, Escobedo had already ripped the girl’s blouse off and beat her up pretty good. That was the cue for Andy to transform himself into the Incredible Punching Man, fuck being a cop, you know what I mean?’
Hunter didn’t reply, and silence took over for several seconds.
‘The truth is . . .’ Stokes finally carried on, ‘. . . the bastard deserved every punch he got. Andy made a mess of his face.’
Hunter sipped his coffee calmly. ‘So where’s he now? Where’s Escobedo?’
‘I have no idea. This all happened twelve years ago. Escobedo got ten inside and served every second of it. The last I heard, he was released two years ago.’
Something like an electric charge ran up Hunter’s spine.
‘And I’ll tell you right now,’ Stokes moved on, ‘if that sack of shit is the one who took Andy down then . . .’
‘Where did he go?’ Hunter interrupted Stokes, scooting up to the edge of his seat.
‘What?’ Stokes squinted and pushed back a strand of floppy hair off his forehead.
‘Escobedo, which prison did he go to?’
‘The state prison in Los Angeles County.’
‘In Lancaster?’
‘That’s right.’
Same prison as Ken Sands, Hunter thought.
‘Seriously, if Escobedo did this, I . . .’
‘You’re not going to do anything,’ Hunter cut him off again. The last thing he wanted was for Stokes to leave that café thinking that he had a tip on LA’s newest cop killer. That bogus information would leak like water through a sieve, and by lunchtime Hunter would have half of the cops in the city out on a vendetta hunt. He needed to dissuade Stokes. ‘Look, Seb, if Escobedo is the only guy you can think of, then we’ll look into him, but at the moment he isn’t even a suspect. He’s just a name on a list. We have nothing to link him to the crime scene – no fingerprints, no DNA, no fibers found, no witnesses. We don’t even know where he was the day Nashorn was murdered, or if he possesses the skills to do what was done.’ Hunter allowed a couple of seconds for his words to sink in. ‘You’re a good detective. I read your file. You know exactly how investigations work. If a rumor starts circulating now, this whole investigation will be jeopardized. And when that happens, it gives guilty people a chance to walk. You know that.’
‘This motherfucker ain’t walking.’
‘You’re right, no he isn’t. And if Escobedo is our guy, I’ll get him.’
The conviction in Hunter’s voice softened the hard look in Stokes’s eyes.
Hunter placed a card on the table and pushed it over towards Stokes. ‘If you think of anyone else other than Escobedo, give me a call.’ He stopped as he stood up. ‘And listen, humor me and stay alert, OK? This guy is smarter than your average perp.’
Stokes smiled. ‘And as I said . . .’ he patted the bulge under his suit jacket, ‘. . . let him come.’
Fifty-Four
Garcia had just finished reading the files Alice had given him when Hunter pushed the office door open. The drive back from the Grub café to the PAB took him longer than he expected.
‘You’ve gotta read this,’ Garcia said, even before Hunter got to his desk.
‘What is it?’
‘Alfredo Ortega and Ken Sands’s prison files and visitation records.’
Hunter frowned and looked at Alice, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee.
‘The captain said get a move on; I got a move on,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘You hacked into the California prison-system database?’
Alice gave him an almost imperceptible shrug.
‘What?’ Garcia chuckled at the question. ‘You said that these reports were one of the perks of having the DA, the Mayor of Los Angeles, and the Chief of Police on our side.’
Alice gave him a sideways look followed by a smile. ‘I lied. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how you would react to the fact that I broke protocol. Some cops are very strict in their ways.’
Garcia smiled back. ‘Not in this office.’
‘OK then, what have we got?’ Hunter asked Garcia.
Garcia flipped back a few pages on the first file. Alfredo Ortega went to prison eleven years before Ken Sands, who, as Alice told us yesterday, was named by Ortega as his next of kin. During those eleven years between Ortega going to prison and Sands getting arrested, Ken Sands visited Alfredo Ortega no less than thirty-three times.’
Hunter leaned back against the front edge of his desk. ‘Three times a year.’
‘Three times a year,’ Garcia repeated, nodding. ‘Because of the heinous nature of Ortega’s crime, he was what is called a “Condemned Grade B” prisoner, and that means that they may only receive non-contact visits.’
