Come Twilight (Long Beach Homicide Book 4)

by Tyler Dilts

  “Kayla, I’m Danny. Stay in the bathroom for now. I need to make another call to get you some help. Don’t hang up. I’m going to be right here listening. You just say my name if you need me, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I switched her call to the speaker and put the cell down on my desk. She needed help immediately, but I didn’t want to spook her tail. I called the watch commander and quickly explained the situation. She’d send a patrol unit to Viento, but it would remain out of sight unless needed.

  “Kayla? You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you describe the man to me?”

  “Uh, he’s kind of average-looking.”

  “Young? Old?”

  “Thirties, maybe?”

  “What’s he wearing?

  “Shorts, I think, with a light-blue shirt. The sleeves are rolled up.”

  “Is he white?”

  “I think so, but dark hair, kind of tan. He looks like the kind of guy you see coming to coffee shops to work.”

  “That’s good. Hang on for a minute. I need to make another call.”

  “All right.”

  I put the cell back down on the desk and picked up the landline.

  Jen was in court, but I tried her anyway. The call went straight to her voice mail. I didn’t want to take the time to leave a message, so I disconnected. Patrick was at least an hour away, probably longer with the traffic. I didn’t have a car and it would take too long to check one out of the motor pool.

  Lauren answered on the second ring.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Home. Why?” She could hear the urgency in my voice.

  “How fast can you get to Viento y Agua?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  She was already in her car by the time I finished explaining.

  I hung up and called the watch commander and told her I needed a ride and I’d be there in two minutes. She was still talking when I put the phone down, picked up my cell and earbuds, and headed downstairs.

  There was a patrol officer waiting for me and we rolled out Code Three. I kept Kayla talking on the phone, but it was hard to hear her over the siren. I killed it when we turned left on the red at Junipero and cut up to Fourth Street.

  A white bubble popped up on the screen of my phone. It was a text from Lauren. I’m here. Outside. Next door at yoga place.

  Stay put. Almost there.

  “Kayla? How’s it going?”

  “I’m still in the—shit, someone’s knocking!”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Tell them you’re almost done and flush the toilet.”

  She did.

  “Now turn on the faucet and let it run.”

  I had the driver pull up to the curb in a red zone a few doors down from the coffeehouse, far enough away that no one inside would be able to see the car. Lauren was on the sidewalk and I could see the patrol unit around the corner on Termino. I walked toward it and motioned for Lauren to follow.

  To the driver, I said, “Go around the block and cover the other side.”

  “Got it,” he replied, rolling away.

  “Kayla, how you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “We’re right outside, so everything’s all right. I want you to unlock the door and go back to where you were sitting and just pretend like everything’s fine. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes?”

  “Good,” I said. “I’ll be coming inside in just a minute. I’ll let you know when I’m moving. We’re almost done with this. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Lauren said, “You don’t think the guy who’s following her will think something’s up with her twenty-minute bathroom break?”

  “Maybe. We’ll just have to see how he plays it.”

  I told the two officers—a man and a woman—that I’d be sending Kayla out and that I wanted them to take her back to the station and wait for me.

  There was a silver Golf in a loading zone across the street from the coffeehouse. “That’s your VW, right?” I asked Lauren.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Get in it and see if you can tail the guy when he comes out.”

  “I’ve never tailed anyone before,” she said.

  “That’s all right. Do your best. If you can get a plate number, we’ll call that a win.”

  I started around the corner. “Kayla?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m on my way inside. You’re going to see a tall guy with brown hair. That’s me. Pretend like you don’t notice me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Wait until I get a coffee and then I distract the guy who’s following you,” I said. “As soon as you see me get tangled up with him, grab your stuff, go outside past the yoga studio next door and around the corner. There will be a police car waiting for you. Get inside and they’ll take you to the station and I’ll meet you there. Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Here I come.”

  Viento y Agua was pretty much everybody’s favorite coffeehouse in Long Beach. At least everybody that I knew. It had a Día de los Muertos vibe to its decor and did triple duty, serving also as a performance space and an art gallery. Walking inside, I spotted Kayla at once, but I was careful not to look directly at her. On the right side was a lounge area with sofas and easy chairs. She was in the corner by the front window with her feet up, staring at her phone and moving her thumbs as if she were typing. She didn’t look up at me. Good girl.

  The other side of the room was all tables and chairs, with a small stage in the back. Kayla’s tail was sitting with his back against the white wall that served as the primary gallery display space. I didn’t look at him as I headed straight back to the service counter in the corner opposite the stage, but I did manage to snap a few photos with my phone. If he noticed, he didn’t give me any indication.

  “Just a regular coffee, please,” I said to the barista. He had dreadlocks and a thick beard with a waxed handlebar mustache. I didn’t allow myself time to try to figure out the odd combination.

  “For here or to go?” he asked.

  “To go.”

  He didn’t seem to approve of my choice. I paid him and took my bad-person disposable cup over to the other side of the shop and began looking at the art on the walls. The paintings were all of human figures with animal heads. They were actually kind of cool, whimsical images that looked like watercolors or pastels, but I didn’t really look too closely at any of them because I was keeping my peripheral vision trained on the man in the light-blue shirt. He had a laptop open on the table in front of him, but I couldn’t see what was on the screen.

  The third time I caught him glancing at Kayla, I started moving closer to him, all the while pretending to study the art on the wall. I was looking at a walrus man with a baseball bat who had just taken a swing and was finishing his follow-through when I made my move.

  Only a few feet away from the blue shirt, I pretended to stumble and poured half my coffee on his shoulder.

  He screamed and stood up. “Jesus!” he yelled. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  Before I could pretend to apologize, he shoved me back into another table and I stumbled, almost falling over. As I turned back toward him, I glanced at the door and I saw Kayla slipping outside.

  When I looked back at him, I must have been smiling because he said, “What’s so funny?”

  I showed him my badge. “You just assaulted a police officer.”

  As that realization was sinking in, he looked across the room and saw that Kayla was gone. He sat back down and buried his face in his palms.

  Patrick had two new witnesses to question when he got back to the station. As much as I would have loved to help, I knew I’d already stepped way over the line. When Ruiz heard, I expected consequences. I honestly didn’t see any way around what I did, though. It needed to be done. We could have sent a patrol unit to pick Kayla up, but in all likelihood we would have lost the man who was
following her, who we soon found out was named Avram Novak. Lauren could have gone with the patrol unit, but she had even less experience than the other officers who wound up at the scene. There was also the ticking clock that had left me no time to bring anyone else up to speed. And the fact that Kayla had my number and might have been hesitant to talk to anyone else.

  I didn’t have a choice. I had to respond.

  And the road to hell is paved with extenuating circumstances.

  “Why can’t I just talk to you?” Kayla asked when I told her that Patrick would need to interview her.

  “Because it’s not my case.”

  “Then why did Ryan’s neighbor have your card?”

  “I was investigating something else.”

  “What?”

  “His landlord was killed.”

  “Oh, no. Ryan really likes him.” In her expression I could see the realization as it happened. “Do you think that’s why Ryan disappeared? Does it have something to do with that?”

  “It might.”

  “Do you think something happened to Ryan?” The worry was creasing the skin around her eyes and making her look older.

  The lie I needed to tell her was too much to handle at the moment, so I withheld as much as I could. “Maybe,” I said. Before she could ask anything else, I said, “Let me check with the detective who needs to talk to you, all right?”

  She nodded and I went back into the squad room. I called Patrick. He told me he was southbound on the 710 and he’d be there soon. Jen was still in court, so I left her another voice mail.

  The familiar twinge of anticipation and excitement that always came with a break in a case was humming through me. My mind was racing with the possibilities, the questions I wanted to ask, the connections I wanted to make, the new threads I wanted to pull. But I forced myself to stop, to try to let go.

  Kayla was still in the conference room. It was getting a lot of use this week. “He’ll be here in just a few minutes. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, water, iced tea?”

  “Just water?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head.

  Lauren was in the break room with a cup of coffee and a toasted bagel. “I missed lunch,” she said. “What do we do now?”

  “Wait,” I said. “Patrick should be here any minute.” Usually, I was good at waiting. It comes with the job. This was different. I wasn’t waiting for my chance at the big play and my opportunity to score. No, this was waiting to hand off a ball I shouldn’t even have had in my hands. Holding it, I discovered, and fighting every impulse that told me I should run for the goal, was worse than not being there at all.

  Kayla was all right when I gave her a bottle of water, so I headed back to my desk. As I passed the lieutenant’s office, Ruiz called my name.

  “The girl’s okay?” he said as I stood in his doorway.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  I waited for him to tell me to sit down so he could rake me over the coals, but he didn’t. When he realized I was still standing there, he said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

  While I was relieved he decided to let me off the hook, at least temporarily, a small part of me almost wished he hadn’t. Then at least I would have felt like I was still involved. The feeling reminded me of my days in uniform. I’d wanted to be a detective even before I joined the force, even before I’d taken my first criminal-justice course at CSULB. My father’s job as a deputy sheriff, and his death when I was so young, left me with a fascination for both police work and homicide. I didn’t understand until I spent a good amount of time with a therapist after Megan’s death that I’d spent my whole life trying to fill the void he’d left in my life when he was killed. There was no mystery to his case, it was literally open and shut. The people who killed him were convicted and served their time. Justice was done. Still, I wondered why. Not “why” in the sense of the motive, that was clear enough. But the big why. The why of poets and philosophers and scientists.

  When I was a younger cop and making my way up the ranks, I was continually frustrated by the everyday occurrence of responding to crimes, especially homicides—experiencing the acts and their aftermath, becoming enmeshed in them, and then having to let the cases go to the detectives who would arrive and take over, as we were sent on to the next crime and the next, always witnessing, but never being able to ask the questions that might lead to answers. Even after my first detective assignment, it still took years to understand that it wasn’t the answers that filled the void. No, they were never enough, they never provided enough knowledge or satisfaction or closure. It wasn’t the answers. It was the questions. As long as I could ask more questions, I could cope with the emptiness. They were what I fought with. I knew I’d never win, never understand the big why, but I knew that as long as I could keep questioning, like someone treading water in a vast ocean, I could keep myself afloat.

  After I told Patrick everything I had to tell him, he said, “That’s great, Danny. Why don’t you call it a day? We’ve got it now.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A SEAT AT THE TABLE

  On the way home I told Lauren I needed to stop at the store again.

  “Gelson’s again?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s just hard to be out of the loop.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said.

  I wondered how much Jen had told her about what was going on. About the two cases—the bombing of my car and the Denkins murder and how they had come together. She certainly hadn’t gotten very much from me. “What do you know about all this?” I asked.

  “Just that someone’s after you and that it’s somehow connected to the case you’re working.”

  For days we’d just been telling her what to do and when to do it. And she had. No complaints. No questions asked. How had I forgotten what it was like to be a new patrol officer, just following orders, always in the dark, always wondering?

  When we hit the Ralphs parking lot, I asked, “What do you want to know?”

  She pulled into a parking spot, looked me in the eye, and said, “Everything.”

  I was still detailing the crime scene when we got to the checkout lane with a fifth of Grey Goose and a half gallon of fresh orange juice.

  Before she turned the key in the ignition, she asked, “What would have happened if the gun had been in his right hand?”

  “You’d be wearing your uniform right now and I’d be sleeping in my own bed tonight.”

  While she drove, I told her what I knew about the bombing of my car, the South African land mine, and the Serbian crew that might or might not have a connection to it.

  In the kitchen, while I poured myself half a glass of vodka and topped it off with the juice, I was still talking about Kobe and his Post-it note and the discovery of his body. I asked Lauren if she wanted a drink.

  “On the clock,” she said, getting herself a Diet Coke out of the refrigerator.

  “That’s right.” I lifted the glass and took a sip. “Victims don’t get overtime.”

  “What?” she asked.

  I explained it to her. She didn’t think it was funny. We went outside and sat at the table under the pergola and I told her about Joe and Lucinda and the failed restaurant and the mystery investor. Then I refilled my glass and went on to Jen’s interview and what we’d just done, speculating about Kayla and Novak and their possible connections.

  “You left out the part when you got abducted,” Lauren said.

  “I thought you knew about that. Besides, I was unconscious for most of it.” I hadn’t had anything stronger than an occasional beer or glass of wine for a few months, and I was surprised how much I was feeling the effects of the vodka. The dull throb in my head began to soften, and only as it eased did I realize how strong it had been. Lifting the nearly empty glass off the table, I said, “At least my head feels better.”

  “Should you ev
en be drinking? With the concussion, I mean.”

  “If I’d known how much it would help, I would have started as soon as I left the hospital.”

  “Seriously, how are you? Are you having any symptoms other than the headache?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  She studied me.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You seem different.”

  “Different? How?”

  “Well,” she said. “A week ago, could you have imagined hanging out with me for two hours and telling me every detail of a case you were working on?”

  That made me think. Could I imagine that? No, not really. But what did that mean? Was I behaving differently?

  “I’m not working on the case anymore.”

  She laughed. “That’s even worse. You would have taken a junior patrol officer to the liquor aisle at Ralphs and laid someone else’s investigation on her? Come on.”

  Even though I didn’t want to acknowledge it, Lauren had a point.

  “Something is different,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s the head injury.”

  “Jen?”

  “I’ve never seen her like this. I think maybe I went too far over the line this time for her to try to pull me back.” As I said the words, I found myself surprised that I was willing to admit this to her. And even more surprised that I was willing to admit it to myself.

  Lauren didn’t say anything, and I took her silence to mean that she thought I might be right.

  After finishing my drink, I put the glass down on the table and stood up. My legs were unsteady and I had trouble finding my balance.

  “She always pulls me back,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if I was talking to Lauren or to myself.

  It was after eleven when Jen finally came home. The alcohol had worn off and left me feeling worse than I had before. My head was aching, and it had triggered my chronic pain. It felt like an electric fire was flowing up from the tips of my fingers all the way into my spine and exploding upward into my head.

  I got up off the couch when I heard her close the front door and throw the deadbolt. She came into the kitchen and put her bag down on the table. The recognition of my pain flashed briefly in her eyes, but her voice was flat when she said, “Let’s go sit in the living room.”