“Hillhurst?”
“Yeah, Hillhurst. Right.”
“Are you staying east or west of Hillhurst?”
“West…between Hillhurst and Tower.”
“Gower?”
“Yeah, Gower. If we ride down Hollywood, I could probably direct you.”
“How”d you find your way here?”
“I used the navigation system.”Grant stopped moving and regarded Decker. “We need to go now.”
“Where is Antoine Resseur?”
“Antoine?”Grant was confused. “At his apartment. Why? Where should he be?”
“I thought Gil was going to stay with Antoine Resseur. What changed his mind?”
“Resseur felt that Gil”s place and his place were targets. So Gil picked out another location. Why are you bringing up Antoine?”
“He”s missing. I was under the impression that he left with you two.”
“He did, but then he left and went back home, I thought.”A pause. “Do you think Antoine had something to do with it?”
Decker sidestepped the question. Resseur hadn”t been in his apartment for the last two days. That marked him as either a suspect or a scared man. “Do you know the name of the driver who took you to the house? We could call him and get the address.”
“No.”His face turned red with fury. “Why aren”t you making calls to your people?”
“To make calls to my people, I need an address. Hold on. Let me think.”Decker picked up the phone and called up the Hollywood station, asking for Detective Kutiel. It was a stroke of luck that his daughter was at her desk. “It”s your favorite Loo. I”ve got Grant Kaffey in my office. Apparently his brother is missing.”
“Not apparently!”Grant shouted. “He”s missing! Why don”t you believe me?”
Over the phone, Cindy said, “I heard that. How long has he been missing?”
“About an hour, maybe a little longer,”Decker said.
“An hour?”Cindy said. “Maybe he took a walk.”
“He just got out of the hospital, so I don”t think so. It could be that someone came by and picked him up—”
“Impossible!”Grant yelled.
“Picked him up to get away from his brother?”Cindy asked.
“The thought crossed my mind,”Decker told her. “Antoine Resseur—Gil”s ex-partner—has been missing since the shooting at the hospital. It could be the two of them ran away—”
“He didn”t run away with Antoine!”Kaffey interjected. “Someone fucking kidnapped him!”
“Hold on!”Decker covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Excuse me while I finish up the conversation. I”m not cutting you off, but if you want help, we”ve got to get a plan going.”To Cindy he said, “The Kaffeys were staying in your territory. Somewhere between Gower and Hillhurst but I don”t know the address—”
“Beachwood!”Grant said triumphantly. “Is there a Beachwood street or boulevard?”When Decker nodded, he said, “We”re staying on Beachwood.”
Decker related the information to Cindy. “We”re on our way over. He can point out the house. Do you have time right now?”
“What do you want me to do? Hop in the car and hunt around the street?”
“That would be a start.”
“And what exactly am I looking for?”
“Start with Antoine Resseur”s car. It”s a 2006 red BMW 328i.”He gave her the license number. “If Gil was picked up by anyone, I”m betting it was him. Could be they just went out for lunch—”
“Jesus fucking Christ!”Grant shouted. “Gil was in no shape to go out!”
“Why not?”Decker countered. “You two went out for dinner last night.”
“And it took me about twenty minutes of helping him in and out of a wheelchair. Besides, if he had gone out, he would have left me a note.”
Not if he wanted to get away from you. Out loud he said, “Is the wheelchair still in the house?”
He didn”t answer right away. “I don”t remember.”
Decker went back to the phone. “If you could put out a call to the cruisers to look for Resseur”s car, that would be helpful.”
“Not a problem. I”m just about done here anyway. I don”t mind driving around the area. It”s a good way for me to unwind and besides, Koby”s still working. Call me when you”re in the city, okay?”
“I will. Thank you, Detective.”He hung up. “Mr. Kaffey, think hard. Where might your brother have gone?”
He slumped into one of the chairs across from Decker”s desk. “I don”t know!”
“Have you called Neptune Brady yet?”
“No.”He hesitated a moment. “Honestly, I don”t trust him. At least you”re neutral.”
“How”d you get over here?”
“I drove. Gil had set up a rental at the house.”
“Gil set it up?”
“Maybe it was Antoine.”Grant flew from the chair and started to pace. “I don”t know! That”s why I”m here. Because I don”t fucking know!”
“Where”s your uncle?”
“Mace?”Grant made a face. “I don”t know. I thought he left to go home.”
“Was he well enough?”
“I don”t know. I haven”t spoken to him. I don”t know if I trust him. I don”t know who to trust. I just want my brother to be okay.”
Tears in Grant”s eyes. His voice broke. “Can we go now?”
Decker picked up the car keys. He had more questions to ask, but he figured he could do that on the way to the house. Grant might be more amenable to talking then.
Nothing as sweet as a captive audience.
TWENTY-SIX
THE HOUSE THAT Grant pointed out was a 1960s modern perched on the crest of a mountain: low slung and built into the rocky crag. The exterior was glass, steel, and white stucco and was ringed with large camellia bushes in full pink bloom. Grant”s identification was confirmed when his key opened the door.
The first thing Decker noticed was a vertigo view of the entire L.A. basin. It was all glass with no seams, giving the space a greenhouse look. It was one story and sprawled from room to room: handy for someone who was wheelchair bound—as long as the person didn”t crash into the glass. The wood floors were stained ebony but the rest of the house, including the vaulted ceilings and walls, were painted a deep taupe.
The furniture was also 1960s in style but looked too new to be original. There was a low-slung gray velvet sofa, a love seat fashioned from multicolored leather polka dots framed with aluminum tubular molding, a red plastic chair fashioned into the shape of a hand, and a psychedelic area rug.
Decker and his daughter exchanged glances. A quick once-over told them immediately that nothing appeared out of place. There was no obvious sign of a struggle. Vases and knickknacks stood upright on tables and shelves. The dining room chairs were neatly spaced around the table, and the kitchen counter with all its appliances and accoutrements looked undisturbed.
Off an open area that contained the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen were two long hallways—one to the left and one to the right. Grant was already seated on the couch with his eyes closed. He was wan.
Decker said, “When was the last time you ate?”
“I don”t remember.”
“Go eat something. You”ll need to keep up your strength. Where”s Gil”s room?”
“To the left, all the way down. The house has two master suites, which is why Gil liked it.”
To Cindy, Decker said, “I”ll take the left, you take the right.”
“You”re going to go through my things?”Grant asked Cindy.
“Briefly.”
“Maybe I should come with you.”
“Go eat something,”Decker said. “Let us do our job.”
Surprisingly, Grant acquiesced with a nod.
“Come in when you feel better,”Cindy told him. Although she dressed for comfort, she still managed to look stylish: brown pants, a gold sweater, and an orange jacket that matched her flaming ginger hai
r. She had pulled back her mop into a ponytail and it swayed as she walked. Pearl earrings were her only concession to adornment. When she and Decker met back in the living room, twenty minutes later, the Los Angeles sky was tumbling in pinks and oranges.
Grant was on the phone. He quickly excused himself and hung up. “Anything?”
“Nothing seems out of place to my eye,”Cindy said. “You”re very neat. I tried to disturb your order as little as possible.”
Decker said, “Did you find the wheelchair?”
Cindy shook her head no.
“Neither did I.”He turned to Grant. “Your brother doesn”t have a lot of clothing. Three shirts, a couple pairs of pants, two pairs of pajamas, two robes, a pair of slippers, and a pair of loafers.”
“How many robes?”
Decker consulted his list. “A white terry robe hanging in the bathroom, and a silk maroon robe in the closet.”
“Gil had way more silk robes than that. That was his preferred mode of dress. Silk robes over silk pajamas except when we went out.”
Decker shook his head. “There were some spare hangers.”He took a seat next to Grant. “You”re not going to want to hear this, Mr. Kaffey, but to me, it seems that your brother packed up and left in your absence.”
“He wasn”t in good shape.”Grant appeared truly baffled. “Why would he do that?”
“You tell me.”
“Maybe someone had a gun to his head.”
“That”s a possibility.”Decker paused. “But everything in his room looked very neat. You”d think if he were packing while his life was being threatened, he”d drop a hanger or the drawers would look a little messier.”He turned to Cindy. “Did you find anything that indicates a kidnap, Detective?”
“Quite the opposite. Everything is really neat.”
Grant faced Cindy, his eyes wet with tears. “But why would he just leave like that? Without telling me? Without leaving me a note?”
Decker raised his eyebrows. “This may also be what you don”t want to hear, but it could be he doesn”t trust you.”
“That”s ridiculous,”Grant sputtered out. “We”re not only brothers, we”re best friends. If anyone should be suspicious, it should be me. He left me all alone. That”s what you do when you”re trying to set someone up.”
Decker held out his hands and shrugged. “Until we know what”s going on, it”s smart to take precautions. Get a bodyguard. If you don”t trust Brady, find someone yourself. And you should probably move out. Wherever you end up, tell me, okay?”
“Do you think Wind Chimes in Newport would be okay?”
“If you stay at Wind Chimes, you”ll need a staff of bodyguards. If I were you, I”d go smaller.”
Grant said, “What do you think about Neptune? Should I trust him?”
“How about if we talk about it on the way back to the station house. Why don”t you pack up a few things and then we”ll go?”
“Is it safe for me to do that?”
“I”ll come with you,”Cindy said. “There are a lot of windows with no treatments. Just in case something”s lurking.”
It took Grant twenty minutes to pack his belongings into two suitcases. By that time, the view outside had faded to charcoal with starlight sitting above the twinkling city lights. Outside the air was mild with crickets chirping. The roadside was nearly black, with streetlamps being few and far between. Grant struggled to get the key into the lock, the sole illumination a yellow-tinged porch light. Because it was so quiet, Decker heard the pops and because it was so dark, he saw the blinding orange flashes. Without thinking he pushed Cindy into the camellia bushes on the right while falling on top of Grant Kaffey, rolling the both of them into the shrubbery on the left. As he lay sprawled out on Grant, he managed to extract his gun, while screaming to Cindy to ask if she was all right.
“I”m fine, I”m fine, I”m fine,”she screamed back. “I got my gun.”
“Don”t shoot!”Decker screamed.
And then the night turned deathly quiet.
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Don”t shoot. Let your eyes adjust.”
“I”m with you, boss.”
His own eyes were intensely focused, staring through the bushes, seeing whatever he could make out: some pinpoints of light but mostly shadows. Houses…parked cars…trees. Nothing in human shape appeared to be moving. To Grant he whispered, “You okay?”
“Yeah. My leg hurts.”
Grant was grunting. Not surprising because Decker must have outweighed him by fifty pounds. “Bad?”
“I think I scraped it. I”m okay.”
Decker”s ears suddenly perked up to the sound of receding footsteps, but he couldn”t see any shape or form. Within a moment, an ignition fired followed by the screech of tires laying down rubber. The noise grew softer as the seconds ticked on.
“Can you reach your phone?”
“Yeah…I think so…”
Decker waited stock-still while his eyes continued to look for a change in the shadows. “Call 911 and hold it up to my ear, okay? You still there, Cin?”
“I”m still here with my metallic friend in hand.”
The crickets had started up again. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally felt the cell upon his ear, an operator saying those beautiful words.
“911. What”s your emergency?”
In a calm whisper that belied his rapidly beating heart, Decker explained that he was from LAPD, that shots had been fired, that one person may be hurt, and they needed immediate backup. He gave the address and the street to the operator and told her to tell the cruisers to stop any vehicle they met coming up the mountain. “Use extreme caution. The driver of the car may be armed.”
She repeated the address back to him.
Decker told her yes. He wasn”t even aware that he had memorized the street numerals. But such was the force of habit after thirty-plus years on the job. He had always made it a point to know where he was, had done so unconsciously.
Five minutes later, Decker could hear the wail of the approaching sirens. Using Grant”s cell phone, he pinpointed his location to the uniformed cops. It took a while to secure the area and extract them from the foliage.
All around were blinking black-and-whites. Curious neighbors stood behind yellow crime tape. As the three of them brushed dirt off their clothes, Grant discovered that his pants were torn and he was bleeding from his leg. Decker took a flashlight from a uniformed officer, knelt down, and carefully parted the torn cloth on Grant”s pants leg.
Could be a nasty scrape or it could be a graze wound. In better light, he could have discerned if the skin had been burned or not. He could see that it was oozing—wet and shiny—but it wasn”t spurting. He looped his arm around Grant”s waist and asked Cindy to help him carry Grant to a cruiser. The best thing to do was to keep him settled and let the professionals handle this one.
As soon as Kaffey was seated in a black-and-white, Decker radioed for an ambulance.
“I”M HUNG UP at work.”Decker was trying to keep his voice neutral. “Do me a favor and stay overnight with your parents.”
“How late are you going to be?”Rina asked him.
“I don”t know. I”m at a crime scene. Maybe pretty late.”
“What crime scene?”
“Can”t go into that right now. I”ll talk to you later, okay? Call me when you get to your parents”.”
“Peter, you sound very tense. What aren”t you telling me?”
“I can”t get into that.”
Rina could hear voices in the background. One of them sounded like her stepdaughter. “Is Cindy there?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Obviously I hear her. What are you doing in Hollywood?”
“Maybe she”s in West Valley. I”ve got to go.”
“Not until you tell me what”s going on. I”ve been a cop”s wife for seventeen years. I”m not going to m
elt. Tell me right now!”
Decker gave her the abbreviated version, hoping that would satisfy her.
“But you and Cindy are okay?”
Her voice sounded shaky. “Rina, we”re both fine. My face got scratched a little, but other than that, I am completely whole.”
“Baruch Hashem. I”ll bench Gomel for you.”
The prayer for surviving a dire situation. “Do it for Cindy as well.”
“I will.”Now her voice sounded teary. “What are you doing right now?”
“We”re trying to find all the bullets and reconstructing the trajectory.”
“So you can know how lucky you were.”
Decker smiled. “I just wish I could have seen something. You know how dark it is in the hills, and I was literally hiding in the bushes.”
“Could you hear anything?”
“Receding footsteps and a car peeling rubber. I”ve called in a tech to see if we can lift a tire print from the skid marks. Maybe we”ll catch a break.”
Rina didn”t answer.
“Are you still there?”Decker asked.
“I was just thinking about the blue Saturn that was parked across the street.”
“The one with the tinted windows and Popper Motors license plate. I had Marge check it out. They do sell new and used Saturns. Marge spoke to a salesperson named Dean Reeves. They”re checking the records. If it came from them, they have a record of the tires on the car.”
“It would be interesting if the treads matched your skid marks.”
“It would be more than interesting, it would be downright scary. I”ve got to go. Call me when you”re at your parents.”
“I will. You”re not so far from them. Maybe you”ll get off earlier than you think.”
“I”ll come over whenever I can.”
“Good to hear,”Rina said. “I”ll keep the night-light on and the sheets warm.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE PAIR LOOKED like Marge and Oliver. The woman had on a gray sweater with the sleeves hiked up at the elbows, dark blue trousers, and sneakers, but the man”s dress was a giveaway—a spiffy blue sports jacket, khaki slacks, and oxfords. As they came closer, their faces took form.
“What are you doing here?”Decker said.
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