NCIS Los Angeles

by Jerome Preisler

  “Cognac, there’s a difference,” Varno cut in. “The rule being that every cognac is a brandy, but not every brandy is a cognac.”

  Callen looked at him. “Right.”

  “Cognac being a high quality brandy made in a certain part of France.”

  “Uh huh….”

  “The cognac on the table being very high end stuff,” Varno said. “Rémy Martin XO Excellence. A one-point-seven-five liter bottle goes for a half grand to a grand, depending where you buy it.”

  Callen stared up at the detective. Varno’s repeated interruptions were really starting to get on his nerves.

  “I doubt she was hitting her boss’s prime stock herself,” he said. “More likely she’s pouring it for Sutton while he’s waiting for the dog to do its business. Then the killer enters the house, shoots her, goes outside, and takes out the old man and the dog.”

  “Could be,” Varno said. “Or maybe Sutton’s killed first. We can’t be positive.”

  Callen considered that. A thought had come to mind.

  “Let’s get back to the kid with the bike.”

  “Oops,” Varno said.

  “What?”

  “Oops, you called the teen a ‘kid’ again,” Varno said, and grinned. “You see what I did there, incidentally?”

  Callen inhaled, ignoring that last comment.

  “He hears gunfire in the backyard. Comes up the drive, sees the open side door, calls the sheriff pretty much at once.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And there’s no sign of the killer.”

  “Right.”

  “No more gunshots afterward according to your earwitness.”

  “Right.”

  “Meaning the housekeeper was shot before Sutton and his dog,” Callen said. “Assuming the witness is right about the gunfire coming from behind the house.”

  Varno looked at him for several seconds, then nodded.

  “Good thinking,” he said. “You’d make a decent detective if it wasn’t for luxury mansion explosions coming with the package.”

  Callen stood up, letting that comment pass too.

  “Is there anything else?” he asked.

  “About the bodies or what the teen heard?”

  “Anything relevant.”

  Varno looked at him.

  “The bedroom,” he said.

  “What about it?”

  Varno nodded past the dining room table.

  “You’ll want to take a peek for yourself,” he said, and turned to lead him deeper into the house.

  * * *

  “Hell of a thing,” Sam said. He was standing out near the bougainvillea hedge on the north side of the property, watching the crime scene photographer take pictures of the dead dog.

  A thirtyish woman of Asian descent, she had short, spiky black hair, and wore jeans and a blue County Sheriff’s windbreaker.

  “Yes,” she said. “For the dog and master.”

  “I’ve got a question, Ms.…” He read her nametag. “Omura.”

  “Emily,” she said. “Em’s fine.” She lowered her camera. “I saw you pull up in that Challenger. The best muscle car on wheels… and not your typical detective car.”

  “That’s ’cause I’m not your typical detective.” He grinned. “Em… you see a picture here worth that thousand words I’m always hearing about?”

  She motioned at the dog with her chin. “You tell me.”

  Sam crouched over the animal’s remains. It was stretched out parallel to the back of the house, its head almost in the shrubbery, and its hindquarters pointing out into the yard.

  “There are multiple entrance wounds,” he said, his gloved hand carefully pulling the sticky, blood-soaked fur away from its chest. “This is a tight grouping… whoever did it knows how to handle a gun.”

  “And bear in mind the dog made a low target,” Em said. “He—it’s a male, I checked—would have stood two feet tall, max, and isn’t very broad from shoulder to shoulder.”

  Sam grunted. “I didn’t notice any footprints out here,” he said. “You?”

  The photographer shook her head slightly.

  “No,” she said. “Human or canine. But the lawn is in good shape…”

  “And healthy, watered grass pops up fast after you step on it.”

  “Exactly.” She wobbled the camera in both hands. “I’ve photographed every inch of the yard. But there are no shoe impressions, nothing to tell us where anyone might have walked.”

  Sam studied the dog’s position on the ground. “It couldn’t have been standing, or laying, this way when it was killed,” he said. “If it was facing the bushes, it would’ve been shot in the side, not the chest.”

  She nodded. “Take a close look around his body.”

  Sam did, his eyes intent. After a moment he noticed the tiny spots of blood in the grass between the animal and the house.

  “Sonofagun,” he said, motioning to the blood specks. “This is forward spatter…”

  “And the spray goes in the direction of the veranda doors,” Em said.

  He nodded, shifted his gaze to the bushes, and saw larger bloodstains on the smooth green bougainvillea leaves.

  “These drops are bigger,” he said.

  “Right. And see how they kind of arc?”

  Sam gave another nod. Some of the spatters were spherical, others teardrop shaped. But they all looked as if they’d been swiped across the hedge by a paint brush.

  “They’re castoffs and transfers,” he said. “The dog thrashed around in a circle after it was shot, shook blood off onto the bushes. Then he must’ve made contact with them and smeared more onto the leaves.”

  “Right,” she said. “That accounts for the distorted droplets.” She squatted alongside him and pointed at one of the bushes. “Also see how several of the flowers look like they were ripped off the branches here?”

  Sam shifted his eyes to the animal. There were little pink petals in the thick, curly fur on its flank and tail, confirming that its violent death throes sent it twisting into the bushes.

  “The dog’s hanging out in the yard, sees something… someone… in the house, turns to look, and gets blown away by that someone.”

  “Like his master,” Em said. “It’s even plainer with Sutton. He fell straight back, probably died before he hit the ground.”

  He let that sink in, glancing over at the dead man sprawled in the late day shadows across the yard. How many people owed him their lives? Almost two hundred shiploads of U.N. troops were evacuated at Inchon… about a hundred thousand soldiers in all, most of them American. Plus the fifteen thousand defenseless South Korean men, women, and children who’d faced cold-blooded slaughter from the Red Chinese invaders that overran them. If the Russian subs lurking in the Yellow Sea had managed to cut off the armada from shore, it would have doomed the entire rescue operation. And Sutton’s leadership and actions were all that prevented it.

  How many people?

  Sam turned his back to the house, folded his arms across his chest, and gazed downhill for a while. Far below, down the gentle green slope of the hill, a band of tangerine sunlight was reflecting off the Santa Barbara Channel where it met the wide, sandy curve of East Beach.

  It struck him that Sutton must have stood admiring the view countless times. Hadn’t he once been the commander at Port Hueneme?

  He expelled a breath and looked over at Emily Omura. She’d stood up, brushing off the knees of her jeans.

  “Is photography your only specialty?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “You’re talking to the world’s worst photographer,” she said. “The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office isn’t LAPD, and we all pitch in where we’re needed.” A pause. “I’m an entomologist by training and experience.”

  “You do insects?”

  “I wouldn’t quite put it that way,” she said. “Though I have been involved with a couple of guys who arguably fit the description.”

  Sam saw she was smiling, and smiled back.
<
br />   “My guess is the dog wasn’t shot too long before Sutton,” he said. “I’m wondering if it’s possible to fix its time of death.”

  “Relative to Sutton’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  She thought a moment. “Both their bodies are pretty stiff,” she said. “But there might be differences in the biological processes leading to rigor mortis in humans and animals.”

  “Differences in timing, for instance?”

  A shrug. “I’d think a forensic veterinarian could tell you for sure,” she said. “If you don’t know one, I could recommend somebody.”

  Sam nodded. He wanted to return to the house and see how Callen was doing.

  “You’ve been a big help out here,” he said. “Think you could email me your pictures for my files?”

  She smiled.

  “Of course,” she said. “Crappy as they may be.”

  * * *

  Elias Sutton’s bedroom was a disaster area.

  Following Detective Varno through the entryway, Callen was confronted with open dresser drawers with clothes spilling out of them, overturned storage boxes, papers scattered about the plush wool carpet… even the bedding was stripped from the mattress and tossed into a loose, disorderly pile.

  “This place is a total shambles,” he said.

  “Besides being turned inside out,” Varno added.

  Callen didn’t comment, thinking he would not let himself get baited into another round of semantics, never mind that it would seemingly kill the detective’s fun.

  His eyes roamed the room. Somebody had rifled through it, throwing things wildly about, leaving them wherever they landed. He saw an open glass display case on the wall opposite Sutton’s bed, a jumble of small, odd-looking tubular cardboard boxes on the floor beneath it, their labels blue, white, gold, and various other colors….

  “They’re Edison cylinder records,” Varno said. “Well, the containers.”

  Callen turned to him. “Like for a gramophone?”

  Varno nodded. “They’re all empty,” he said. “Could be the records were stolen out of them… I’m guessing they’re what’s most valuable. But, who knows, it could be Sutton just collected the tubes.”

  Callen went further into the room, knelt over the boxes for a closer look. He counted almost two dozen of them, nearly all with their lids off and lying nearby on the carpet.

  There was a desk by the bay windows across from him, its drawers pulled out, their contents strewn all over the floor—pens, pencils, erasers, mounds of paperclips, rubber bands, sticky note pads, mailing envelopes, and dozens of other items large and small.

  “Nothing’s broken, no blood,” he said, standing up. “For all this mess, I don’t see any signs of a struggle.”

  “My thoughts exactly, Mr. Holmes,” Varno said.

  Callen massaged his stubbled chin. A copy of the Los Angeles Times was on the floor near the record tubes, folded across its length atop some shirts.

  He bent, picked it up, and glanced at the front page.

  “This is today’s paper,” he said, showing it to Varno.

  “So it is,” the detective said. “What about it?”

  “Look around,” Callen said. “Everything else was dumped in a hurry. But it’s nice and neat. With a crisp fold. There isn’t a page out of place.”

  “Meaning?”

  Callen shrugged. “It’s like somebody was standing right here, holding it in his hands, and—” He let the paper slip from his fingers to the pile of shirts—“dropped it. Just let it fall straight down to the floor.”

  Varno looked at him but said nothing. A sheriff’s deputy drifted in, saw the two standing there together in silence, and left without either of them paying attention to him.

  They still hadn’t budged when Sam Hanna came through the door a half minute later.

  “Jeez,” he said, stopping to look about. “This room’s a shambles.”

  Varno jabbed a finger at him. “Well put,” he said. “You’re a good man.”

  Sam grinned. “Appreciate it,” he said.

  Oblivious to their exchange, Callen glanced thoughtfully down at the newspaper again, then looked up at the expansive bay windows, and moved off in their direction. They offered a view of a lush, manicured flower garden on the east side of the property. Facing outward, Sutton’s blond-wood desk seemed custom built for the alcove where the windows projected from the house.

  Callen eyed them carefully. The center window was fixed, the ones to its left and right hinged so they opened from the side. There was nothing to suggest forced entry, but the latch on the right window was turned to the open position. He moved around the desk, pressing his hand against it.

  The window pushed easily outward.

  “Did your people dust these for prints?” he asked, looking at Varno.

  “Not yet.”

  “Go over the flower garden for evidence?”

  Varno shook his head. “All I’ve got here are two techs…”

  “Let’s get it done,” Callen interrupted, and then shifted his attention to the computer on the desktop.

  Sutton obviously hadn’t replaced his equipment in quite a while. His processing unit was an older midsized tower, the monitor a basic flat panel that probably dated back to the early two-thousands.

  Callen pushed the power button on the front of the case, turned on the monitor, and waited.

  The manufacturer’s logo and operating system appeared on the monitor and then gave way to a full blue screen.

  “The dreaded blue screen of death,” Sam said from over his shoulder. “Its hard drive didn’t boot—we’re just seeing what’s on the motherboard.”

  “Do you even hear a hard drive cranking in there?” Callen asked him.

  Sam shook his head.

  “Come to think,” he said, “I don’t.”

  Callen frowned, tapped a random letter on the keyboard, and then listened with his ear close to the CPU.

  Nothing happened. He didn’t hear any of the usual whirring or clicking startup sounds.

  He hit a different key, listened.

  Still nothing.

  “What do you make of it?” he asked.

  “Dunno,” Sam said. “How about we open this baby up and find out?”

  Callen nodded. He slid the tower forward, turned it to access the back… and then straightened, his eyes meeting Sam’s.

  The thumbscrews attaching the processor’s cover to its chassis were sticking straight out of their holes. They’d been twisted almost completely loose.

  Reaching with both hands, he lifted up the cover.

  “Well, well,” he said.

  “Well, well, well,” Callen said.

  “Is this a bromance exclusive, or can I look too?” Varno said, and stepped between them.

  The three stood peering into the computer’s open chassis.

  “Oops,” Varno said. “Appears somebody made off with the hard drive.”

  Callen glanced over at him.

  “Can anything make you quit?” he said.

  The detective grinned.

  “I gotta admit,” he said, “it takes a lot.”

  * * *

  Erasmo Greer sat on the sofa in his single-bedroom Western Avenue flat with a can of cola in his hand and his laptop computer on his knees, the faint blue glow of its monitor playing across the lenses of his glasses. Surrounded by the cartons of old clocks and clock parts crowding every available inch of his tiny living room, he’d blocked out the shouts and crashes of the nightly battle royale in the adjacent apartment, and signed into his merchant’s account on ShopNow!

  Erasmo bent to set the cola down on the floor, the sofa cushion flipping up underneath him as he shifted his weight. An orange plaid convertible he’d snagged for fifteen dollars at a local Salvation Army store—the same place he got his clocks and movements by special arrangement with a staffer—it had a few obvious deficiencies. The armrests were greasy and smelled vaguely of beer and mayonnaise, the frayed, saggy
cushions had little white bouquets of stuffing coming out of them, and the bedframe’s creaky metal springs would corkscrew into his back and sides when it was pulled out. But it was functional enough, and suited Erasmo’s needs.

  He didn’t care about material possessions. Why should he? Even without his sizeable inheritance, he’d earned riches galore as an elite hacker, more money than he could spend in a dozen lifetimes. He could buy anything he wanted, indulge in every luxury imaginable, own majestic homes around the world… homes that would make his current employer’s mansion in the hills look like a cowshed.

  What truly mattered to him, though, was the thrill of accomplishment and his deserved recognition among the hacker community. In that regard he was already living his dream, un rêve dans un rêve…

  But soon he would have to move on, hide himself in a new lifestyle. And he supposed that in the big picture this grungy, decaying Los Angeles slum wasn’t where he belonged. Perhaps it was time to enjoy what others considered the good life. European villas and beaches with tucked-away coves. Days of sun and frolic, nights of vintage wine and music, a parade of beautiful, suntanned women competing for his arm.

  He supposed he would buy a couch of fine leather. A plush sectional built by an Italian designer. He would laugh and lounge on it to his heart’s desire. It would be an experiment of sorts. Would his happiness thrive in his new surroundings? How might they change him?

  There was a loud thump on the wall and Erasmo sighed—the pair next door were quite literally in full swing. Well, he had better things to do than listen to their rumpus. Typing and clicking on his keypad, he went to his seller’s account page.

  Un rêve dans un rêve…

  A dream within a dream.

  Erasmo was perfectly aware of his occasional partner’s limited intellectual capacity. Unlike himself, Isaak Dorani was strictly smalltime, inseparable from his environment. Take a frog out of the pond, and it would miss the mud at its bottom. Isaak would die in the mud rather than leave it behind.

  That, however, was not his concern. His major problem now was satisfying Jag Azarian—and the clock was admittedly within a few ticks of running out.

  In hindsight, Erasmo supposed he shouldn’t have exaggerated his progress to Azarian. That was his one mistake. A sin of hubris. But he’d felt confident he could make the deadline. At one point, it had seemed as if there was so much time.