The Crooked Street

by Brian Freeman

  “This is what I gathered on Detlowe,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”

  They returned to the office. Coyle still had the thumb drive in his hand.

  That was when the computer monitors and the office lights all went out simultaneously with an electrical pop. The machines sighed as they switched off. With the windows shuttered by plywood, they were in total darkness. There was absolutely no light at all.

  “Power’s out,” Coyle announced, his voice oddly disconnected from his body.

  “Does that happen a lot?” Frost asked.

  “No, it’s weird. I can’t remember when it last happened.”

  Frost dug in a pocket for his phone and switched it to flashlight mode, throwing a beam of light between the two of them. Coyle’s round face was a worried mess of shadows.

  “Do you think it’s them?” Coyle asked.

  “We better find out.”

  Frost used the glowing screen to guide them to the anteroom, which was brighter because the outside window was uncovered. He switched off the phone to avoid highlighting their location and crept to the side of the window. The streetlights up and down the block were still on.

  “It’s just us,” he said. “The power’s on everywhere else.”

  Coyle came up beside him and stood directly in front of the glass, and Frost grabbed his arm and yanked him away.

  “Don’t stand where anyone can see you,” Frost warned him.

  “What do we do?” Coyle murmured, his voice cracking with anxiety. The game was over. This was real.

  “Stay here. I’ll go downstairs and check it out.”

  Frost went to the office door and shined a light up and down the hallway. It was empty. He crept to the stairwell. The glass door on the first floor let in enough light from the street to confirm that no one was waiting in the lobby below him. He went down the steps and slipped through the outer door and used an empty soda cup to keep the door from locking.

  He followed the walkway to the curb. His Suburban was the only vehicle in sight. The overhead streetlights made a glowing white trail down the block. He checked the driveway next to the building, but it was fenced off by a gate topped with barbed wire. He was alone. The city felt like a ghost town here.

  The midnight air had turned colder. The wind blew down the lonely street with a growl. Frost retraced his steps to the front of the building, and that was when he saw that one of the downstairs windows had been shattered, leaving broken fragments around the frame. Someone was already inside. He dashed back through the front door and took the stairs two at a time.

  “Coyle?” Frost hissed from the hallway.

  The detective didn’t reply.

  Frost stopped where he was. He reached inside his jacket for his gun. He pressed against the wall and moved sideways toward the open doorway of the anteroom. Faint light from the window spilled into the corridor. He squatted and snapped around the corner. No one was there.

  The door to Coyle’s inner office was open. He called Coyle’s name again, but the detective still didn’t answer.

  Frost approached the doorway step by step with his gun leading the way. When he was almost there, he took shelter behind the wall and switched the light of his phone quickly on and off. The glow of white light attracted no attention. He spun past the door frame and used his phone to survey the room. The small office was empty. Coyle wasn’t there, but he noticed that the wooden panel concealing the hidden door into the library wasn’t fully latched.

  He put his phone back in his pocket.

  Frost slid back the accordion panel silently. The inner door was closed. He stood clear of the doorway and reached around to twist the knob with one hand and push the door open several inches.

  “Coyle?” he called again.

  No answer.

  The interior of the library was blacker than night. So was the office where Frost was standing. He couldn’t see inside, and if anyone was waiting for him in the library, they couldn’t see out. He held his breath, not wanting to make a sound. He listened to his senses for any noise, any smell, that would tell him that the room wasn’t empty. He heard only one thing, faintly.

  It was a slow, terrible, intermittent drip splattering on the floor. He remembered the layout of the room and could think of only one thing that would be dripping inside the library.

  Blood.

  Frost got down on his hands and knees. He crawled with agonizing slowness through the doorway, avoiding every noise. He was utterly blind. The room was a coffin, devoid of light. He reached out with his hands, feeling his way into the larger space of the library. With each movement, he stopped. If someone was here with him, they were frozen, too. Waiting.

  He crawled and reached out, crawled and reached out.

  Something dripped again. Very close by. The sheer silence around him made it sound loud.

  His hand bumped against the warmth of skin. There was a body on the floor. He traced the fingers of a hand and followed the arm until he reached the face. His knuckles scratched against the stubble of a weak beard. It was Coyle, lying on his back, head turned sideways. Frost went to check the detective’s pulse, but when he did, his fingers sank into a sea of blood. He recoiled, clamping his mouth shut. Coyle’s neck had been cut, viciously and deeply, nearly decapitating him. His arteries had already bled out. Frost bent to the man’s chest to listen for a heartbeat and heard none.

  Coyle was dead.

  Frost didn’t have time to feel regret. He knew he wasn’t alone in the room. Coyle’s murderer was here with him, too. Silent and deadly, hidden somewhere, invisible in the darkness.

  Frost eased himself to his feet and backed away from the body. It didn’t matter whether his eyes were open or closed; he couldn’t see anything. He backed up until he felt bookshelves pressing into his back. At least he knew no one was behind him now. He extended his gun in one hand and slid out his phone, but before he could turn on the screen, the folds of his jacket snagged on something on the shelf behind him. A small object rolled and fell. Even as it slipped off the bookshelf, Frost knew what it was. One of Coyle’s Hot Wheels cars.

  The toy clanged to the ground, giving him away. Instantly, he felt a whip of air from his left side. He turned, pointing his gun, but he wasn’t fast enough. Someone crashed into him, taking him to the floor and knocking away his gun and phone. A wildly aimed knife sliced through the air and cut into his jeans and skin. Frost gasped with pain and rolled. The knife came down again, but it missed this time and struck against the concrete floor with a metallic clatter.

  Frost kicked hard. He got lucky. The blow landed, yielding a grunt of breath, but by the time he threw himself toward the sound, the killer had already moved. Frost pushed himself up. The cut on his leg stung. Blood pulsed down his skin. He tried not to breathe, but the exertion made his chest demand oxygen. He had to inhale. As soon as he did, the noise brought his assailant charging through the darkness and landing against his torso like a battering ram. Frost staggered backward. He heard the swish of the knife again and ran blindly, coughing as he tried to suck air back into his lungs. He zigzagged, hearing footsteps chasing him, and collided with the wall. Boxes flew, and books tumbled around him.

  Another assault barely missed him as he dove free. The entire bookshelf toppled with a crash.

  Frost skidded across the floor and stopped. So did the other person. He could hear breathing in the room, but the noise came from everywhere and nowhere in the darkness. His senses began to play tricks on him. He was seeing things when he couldn’t see anything at all. Shapes moved. False lights fooled his eyes. Frost stretched out his arms and felt nothing at the end of his reach. He took a few silent steps and reached out again.

  Nothing.

  And again.

  Then he felt something cool and leathery under his hands and realized it was Coyle’s golf bag. It toppled away from his grasp and fell with an obscene noise. He ducked away from the sound, but as he did, he slipped on something under his feet and hit the
ground. Golf balls rolled wildly around the floor. When he crawled, he came upon the clubs that had spilled from the leather bag.

  Frost grabbed a golf club and stood up. He swung it through the darkness like a baseball bat, causing a ripple of air. He moved and swung it again. He kept swinging over and over, making fast, vicious circles.

  There he was.

  The club slammed hard against the other person in the room and produced a howl of pain. Frost dropped the club and landed a blow with his fist. And another. Then a foot shot into Frost’s stomach with the impact of a brick and threw him off his feet. His skull hit the concrete. Even in blackness, the room spun; he could feel his brain doing somersaults. Nausea rose in his throat.

  He didn’t have much time. The man was coming for him. He skittered backward along the floor, and as his hands scraped across the concrete, a miracle happened.

  His fingers closed over his gun.

  Frost scrambled to his feet. With no hesitation, he rammed back the slide and fired. He couldn’t see anything but a kaleidoscope in the orange flash. He fired again. And again. The noise of running footsteps banged on the floor. And again. And again. The man was getting away. He fired wildly as the door opened somewhere in the spinning darkness. He fired twice more, causing blows of thunder in his ears, but he was alone with the echoes now. He’d missed; the killer was gone. He stood there, breathing hard, as sweat poured down his face.

  20

  Frost stared at the snake.

  The paint was still wet, dripping from its jaws like blood. He’d found it two blocks from Coyle’s building on a concrete pillar underneath the 280 freeway. This one looked rushed, as if the killer had been in a hurry to get away. Frost wondered if the plan had been to have a second snake painted under the first one. If he hadn’t stumbled across his gun, he’d be dead, too.

  He reached around to the back of his head and felt sticky blood in his hair. The cut on his leg throbbed. When a speeding truck above him made the freeway shudder, the vibration shot like spasms up his neck and made his headache worse. He closed his eyes and squeezed his forehead.

  “You look like crap, Easton.”

  Frost turned around. Trent Gorham stood a few feet away, his shoulders slightly slumped on his tall frame. Behind him, at the end of the block, the whirling lights of emergency vehicles clustered near Coyle’s building. Frost leaned against the highway column, feeling dizzy.

  “I’m fine,” Frost told him.

  “That’s not what I hear. The EMTs want you in the ambulance to tape up your leg, and then they want you at the hospital for a CT scan. You could be dealing with a concussion.”

  “I’ll worry about that later.”

  “Not later. Now. You need to get checked out. I’ll put you in cuffs if I need to.”

  Frost didn’t protest. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry about Coyle,” Gorham added. “The guy was a wacko, but I have to admit, I liked him.”

  “I liked him, too.” Frost nodded his head at the graffiti on the freeway column. “Another murder, another snake. Do you still think this is just a crazy conspiracy?”

  Gorham’s pale blond face gave nothing away. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder at the police officers standing nearby. They were out of earshot, but he lowered his voice anyway.

  “A snake doesn’t prove anything, Easton. Half the people on the street probably knew about Coyle and his serial-killer-snake theory. If it was me going to knock him off, I’d paint a snake nearby, too, just to throw us off the scent.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Frost said.

  Gorham shrugged. “All I’m saying is that Coyle was a private detective. When you dig into people’s dirty laundry for a living, you make enemies. The suspect list is going to be a mile long. Don’t be surprised if this one goes unsolved.”

  “It seems like that happens a lot with you, Trent. Whenever there’s a snake involved, the case goes nowhere.”

  The taller inspector took a step into Frost’s space. The man’s sheer size made him intimidating. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Easton. You have absolutely no idea.”

  “Then why don’t you fill me in? Because I’m pretty sure you know more than you’re telling me.”

  Gorham snapped his mouth shut without saying anything more. He stepped away and grimaced as he watched the lights of the freeway traffic overhead. He pinched his big nose between his fingers with a snuffling noise.

  “I’ll have one of the uniforms drive you to the hospital,” he went on, ignoring Frost’s question. “You’ll need to write up a full statement tomorrow about what happened to Coyle. Hayden and Cyril want a debrief about Denny Clark, too, so think hard about what you’re going to tell them. My advice is to steer clear of snakes if you don’t want to look like a fool.”

  Gorham turned away, but Frost grabbed his arm.

  “Hold on, Trent. Coyle had a flash drive with him before he was killed. The drive contained all of his surveillance notes from when he was following Alan Detlowe. I want a copy. I want to dig through whatever Coyle found.”

  “The Detlowe murder is my case,” Gorham snapped.

  “Yeah, but now there’s a link between Detlowe’s murder and what happened to Denny Clark. And Denny’s death is my case.”

  “What’s the link?” Gorham demanded. “What are you talking about?”

  “Fawn. The escort. Denny called her, remember? Coyle also saw Fawn talking to Detlowe the week before he was killed.”

  Gorham’s face reddened. His voice got louder. “So what? Alan was a vice cop. He was on a first-name basis with half the hookers in the city. It doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

  “I don’t think this was an ordinary meeting,” Frost told him. “Fawn was upset about the death of one of her friends—another escort who went by the alias Naomi. I think Fawn asked Detlowe for help, and he started digging into Naomi’s clients. That may be what got him killed. Coyle’s notes might tell us who Detlowe was going after.”

  “And how will that help you with Denny Clark’s murder?” Gorham asked.

  “Because there’s a good chance that whoever killed Naomi and Detlowe killed Denny, too.”

  Gorham shook his head. “I think you’re out in left field on this, but it doesn’t matter. There was no flash drive.”

  “What?”

  “We didn’t find a flash drive on Coyle’s body. There was nothing in his outer office. Whoever killed him must have taken it.”

  Frost scowled with frustration. Another lead had been stripped away. But it also meant he was knocking on the right doors. Denny. Detlowe. Fawn. Lombard. They were all connected.

  “I need to get back to the crime scene,” Gorham went on when Frost was silent. “We’re done here. Go get somebody to look at your head.”

  The other detective began to walk away toward the warehouses of Toland Street, but then he stopped and retraced his steps.

  “Hey, Easton,” Gorham leaned in and whispered. “I’m not saying you’re right about the snakes, but if you are, that means you were lucky to walk away alive. Whoever took out Coyle missed you. Maybe next time you won’t be so lucky, huh? You should think about that.”

  The sun through the bay window in his Russian Hill house finally woke Frost up. He lay on his back on the sofa in the living room, with his right arm draped to the floor. He blinked and saw two pairs of eyes watching him. One pair belonged to Shack, who was in a sphinx position on his chest. The other pair belonged to Tabby, who sat on the carpet next to the sofa with her legs crossed.

  “You’re alive,” she said. “Are you okay? I was worried about you.”

  Frost saw that her pretty mouth was pressed into a frown. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. There’s no concussion, just a monster headache and a nasty cut on my leg. What are you doing here?”

  “The hospital called Duane. Duane called and asked if I would check on you. He’s busy with the food truck.”

  “What time i
s it?” Frost asked. “I didn’t get home until dawn.”

  “Noon.”

  He groaned and sat up, dislodging Shack. He was late. The sudden shift sent little knives up his neck, making him wince. Tabby got off the floor and took a seat next to him on the sofa. Her eyes noted the blood on his jeans.

  “Are you really okay?” she asked.

  “Some coffee, some Advil, I’ll be good to go.”

  “What happened? They didn’t give Duane any details.”

  “I came out on the losing end of a fight. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  Tabby’s forehead crinkled with displeasure. Her voice rose. “Don’t lie to me, Frost. I heard on the news that somebody got killed. Tell me the truth. Did you almost get killed, too?”

  “Yeah, I was lucky,” Frost admitted.

  Tabby closed her eyes and inhaled loudly. “I don’t know how the spouses of cops do it. If I had to live with that fear every day—”

  “Hey, I’m here. That’s the main thing.”

  “Don’t you wonder whether it’s really worth it? I wish you would just give it up and do something else.”

  “Yeah, I think about that sometimes myself. Then I think, what if I hadn’t been out on that pier with you last fall? Bad things will always happen. At least I have a chance to do something about it.”

  Tabby picked up Shack from the floor and stroked him in her lap. “I know. You’re right. I’m being selfish. And I’m sorry about raising my voice. I think you’re getting some of the firepower I was aiming at Duane.”

  “Are you guys having problems?” Frost asked.

  “We had a huge fight last night. The worst I can remember.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh, I didn’t handle it well. There was a lot of yelling. I told him he wasn’t listening to me and that he didn’t care what was going on with my life. And then he started asking how come I didn’t want to set a date for the wedding, and I was in his face about him not realizing what I’ve been through and how I needed more time. It was all real mature.”

  “Duane likes to fight,” Frost said. “It’s how he communicates. Duane Beaston, remember? Then he always makes up.”