City of Echoes (Detective Matt Jones Book 1)

by Robert Ellis

“Are you having any difficulty breathing?” he asked.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “What about chills?”

  Matt nodded, watching Baylor take his wrist and check his pulse against his watch.

  “I’ll bet that you can feel your heart beating in your chest.”

  “Things happened tonight, Doctor.”

  “Yes, they did,” he said. “But the chills and rapid heartbeat are from the loss of blood. You’re still conscious, so I’m gonna guess that you’ve lost somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen to thirty percent.”

  Laura broke open a second pack of gauze. “He needs more, right? He needs a transfusion?”

  Baylor shook his head as he pulled another pair of surgical gloves from his bag and slipped them on. “All he needs is saline, and I’ve got plenty of that here.”

  Matt watched them hovering over him. While Baylor’s voice remained firm and reassuring, he could tell that the doctor was worried. He could see it in his eyes, and by the way he was working at such a feverish pace. Not a single wasted motion, Matt thought—tying a rubber tourniquet above his right elbow and searching his arm for a decent vein, scrubbing the area with something he called ChloraPrep and inserting a needle, then taping down the catheter and applying a dressing until it was fixed to his skin. All this while trying to keep Matt’s mind occupied by chattering away about the case.

  “Have you figured out the riddle, Matthew? Is that what happened tonight? Is that why they shot you?”

  The riddle. Matt couldn’t cut through the brain fog to make the connection. He didn’t understand.

  “The riddle, Matthew. Your riddle. The Glasgow smile. The Chelsea grin. Don’t you remember coming to my office after you reread The Divine Comedy? Don’t you remember your remarkable idea that the killings are somehow related to greed and the seven deadly sins? You said that’s why they were bound like animals and laid facedown. You said that it was about greed and social standing and screwing anyone they could in order to get ahead. You said that it was about punishment.”

  The memory surfaced, however vague or even reliable. “And you asked me why the victims were so young. If it’s about greed, you said, why kill a girl who’s still in school?”

  “You’re with me, Matthew. That’s good. And I’m still looking at the riddle and thinking the same thing I thought the other day. The victims are all innocents. Why would anyone want to hurt them?”

  Matt looked over at Laura and could see her trying to think it through. Then he glanced back at Baylor and watched the doctor hang a bag of saline solution from an irrigation pipe and connect the line to the catheter. When he was finished, he hung a second IV bag beside the first.

  “Are you allergic to any medications?” Baylor said.

  “Maybe penicillin.”

  “Then we’ll be fine. I have to go upstairs for the anesthetic. Stay with me, Matthew, we’re almost there.”

  Matt nodded as Baylor hurried out of the room. He looked at the saline solution dripping into his body and turned to Laura. She was running her free hand through his hair. Her eyes were on his eyes, and for several moments it felt like she was looking all the way in. Like she was somehow able to see everything—his thoughts, his feelings, his past and present, his entire being and essence—and at a time like this, it felt so soothing. So clean and pure.

  “He likes you,” she whispered.

  Matt looked back at her without responding, his mind absorbed in the touch of her gloved hand stroking his hair and forehead. He wished that she wasn’t wearing the glove. He wished that he could feel her skin.

  “He likes you as if you were his son,” she went on. “I can tell. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  His cell started vibrating in his pocket. He didn’t notice it at first. Two or three pulses came and went before he pulled it out, saw Cabrera’s name and number blinking on the screen, and took the call.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “What’s wrong with your voice, Jones?”

  “Lots of things. How’d it go?”

  “Where are you? McKensie’s in. We’re coming to get you.”

  Matt paused, struggling to focus. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Taladyne’s alibi checks out, man. The manager at the Ford dealership has three daughters and remembered his face from the news. He asked to see his driver’s license during the interview. Taladyne had given him a fake name and refused. When the guy threatened to call the cops, Taladyne ran out of the building and drove off the lot.”

  “What about the motel?”

  “A deputy sheriff stopped by half an hour ago with Taladyne’s picture. The woman behind the front desk remembers checking him in a couple weeks ago. People who pay cash stand out these days, so she looked him up. On the night Faith Novakoff was murdered, Taladyne wasn’t in LA. He was in Mint Canyon, trying to get a fucking job.”

  A moment passed, dark and jagged and all ripped up. Matt could feel the dread, the ice-cold chill, rippling up and down his spine.

  “Then that’s it,” he said. “Taladyne’s not the killer.”

  He could feel the idea settling in, the weight of their new reality—the finality of it all—cutting to the bone.

  “That’s it,” Cabrera said. “And Ron Harris wasn’t good for Millie Brown. I can’t believe this is happening. Everything’s so fucked up, one plus one adds up to zero. Now tell me where you are, Jones.”

  “Baylor’s,” he said. “Laura drove me—”

  Matt’s gaze shifted. There was a long-lens camera sitting on the counter, but that wasn’t what was bothering him. It was the vase of cut flowers by the sink. They were dying. He glanced at Laura, then pointed at the vase. He wasn’t sure why the flowers stood out from any of the other plants in Baylor’s greenhouse. He wasn’t sure why they seemed so important.

  “The flowers,” he said. “What are they?”

  She crossed the room and brought the vase over. “Poppies,” she said, “in October. The doctor must have a green thumb.”

  An image flashed before Matt’s eyes. The sea of flowers he’d found growing on the eastern face of the ridge overlooking Brooke Anderson’s dead body below the Hollywood sign. The hiding spot the killer had picked out to watch them deal with her corpse and process the crime scene. The flowers meant for April but springing to life toward the end of fall.

  “What is it?” Laura said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Put them back on the counter,” he said under his breath. “Hurry.”

  He could hear Baylor coming down the stairs. He shut off his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

  The dead flowers meant nothing, he tried telling himself. They meant nothing because in and of themselves they didn’t contribute anything to solving the riddle. It was no longer about a teacher or a copycat. It was about chasing down the One. The only One.

  And if it’s really about greed, why would the One rape and murder three innocent girls?

  Baylor hurried into the room with the anesthetic and hung the IV bag beside the saline solution and the antibiotic. Matt watched him connect the third tube to the main line feeding the catheter in his arm. He must have been showing what he was thinking on his face, because when he glanced over at Laura, she seemed frightened and anxious, like she knew that all of a sudden the plane they were riding on had lost power over an endless forest of tall trees.

  He looked back at Baylor, studying him carefully. “Jamie Taladyne turned out to be innocent,” he said in a worn-out voice that blistered and cracked. “We just cleared him.”

  Baylor paused a moment, considering what he’d heard. Matt glanced at Laura, then up at the IV bags, the anesthetic beginning to drip into the tube.

  “Are you sure about that?” Baylor said finally.

  “His alibi checked out, and the rape charge he did time for turned out to be bogus. He’s never hurt anyone that we know of.”

  “What about this fourth coed? What’s her name? Anna Marie Genet?”

  “W
hat about her?”

  “She’s still missing, right? You know it’s curious, Matthew. Her father and your father probably know each other. He runs a brokerage firm in Chicago.”

  It’s all about the riddle, Matt thought. It’s all about chasing down the One. And if it’s all about greed, why would the maniac rape and murder innocent girls?

  “How do you know anything about the girl’s father, Doctor?”

  Baylor paused to consider the question, and Matt thought that he detected a slight smile before the doctor caught himself.

  “I saw it somewhere,” he said. “On TV, I think, or maybe the Internet. Her father is flying into LA tonight.” Baylor seemed pleased by the idea, even amused, as he checked the flow of all three IV bags and tapped them with his fingers. “You’ll be sedated, Matthew, but awake. You’ll think that you fell asleep because you won’t remember anything when it’s over.”

  Why would Baylor be pleased that the girl’s father was traveling to LA tonight? Why did the doctor care about the girl’s father?

  Matt looked him over as another memory surfaced. He could see Baylor trying to comfort Brooke Anderson’s mother at the coroner’s office. He could see the terror on the woman’s face as she got her first look at what had been done to her daughter. The cuts between her ears and lips that had become so exaggerated, so distressing and hideous. He could hear the woman gasp the moment the sheet had been lifted away. He could see Baylor holding her from behind and watching her take it all in—her life and dreams transformed into a single nightmare that would chase her until the end of time. Her only daughter violated in every imaginable way. Her only daughter ruined.

  But even more, Matt could remember the look on Baylor’s face. He didn’t see it at the time. He didn’t understand it. But now, even through the heavy fog, he could see Baylor’s face and knew with certainty that his read was true.

  It had been the look of absolute joy. The look of ecstasy and rapture.

  The look of absolute evil.

  Baylor was savoring the woman’s grief—getting off on it, feeding on it—while committing every detail to memory.

  It took Matt’s breath away.

  “What did Brooke Anderson’s mother do for a living, Doctor?”

  “You’re slurring your words. And why would you ask a question like that at a time like this?”

  “You said something about an insurance company.”

  Baylor smiled. “She runs a health insurance company, Matthew. A company so big that most people would call it a monopoly. She paid herself more than ten million dollars last year. Then she canceled the policies of the most ill and needy, policies that the people were paying for, and tossed them into the street. When the government forced her to take them back, she doubled their premiums and spent twenty-five million dollars at various resorts on herself and her executive staff. She likes the good life, Matthew. She likes it a lot.”

  Their eyes met, and in an instant the world skidded a mile or two past grim. Like all riddles, there had to be an answer, and for this one, now there finally was.

  If it’s all about greed, why would he rape and murder innocent girls?

  Baylor’s smile broadened, his madness burgeoning, and Matt guessed that the doctor had just figured out what he was thinking. Just figured out that he knew. Matt had reached the end point, the place where all the loose ends get tied into square knots. He was staring into the abyss. He gave Laura a last look and glanced back at Baylor. But then the anesthetic hit, and in the presence of a monster, he felt himself being pulled deeper into the chasm. He could feel his .45 being lifted away from his holster. He could see Baylor placing the pistol on the far counter beside the camera with the zoom lens. His eyes rose to that third IV bag filled with the anesthetic, drop after drop trickling down the line until they reached the catheter in his arm and began swarming his heart and mind.

  He couldn’t hold on any longer. He couldn’t fight it. The angels were coming. They were in the air and all around, and he couldn’t help it. He let go.

  CHAPTER 48

  Matt opened his eyes, overwhelmed and in complete awe. He hadn’t thought that he would ever have the opportunity again.

  He blinked several times, the world coming into focus.

  Baylor’s greenhouse. The doctor’s operating room. The house of death on Toluca Lake Avenue.

  He was alone. All he could hear was the sound of a small fan whirring in the background and water dripping in the sink. After a moment he became aware of something moving in the hallway and looked toward the door.

  Baylor was wearing a lab coat and dragging a woman into the greenhouse.

  Her eyes were closed, her naked body as limp and lifeless as a rag doll’s. When Baylor started down the aisle, Matt got a look at her round face and dark hair and recognized her as the missing eighteen-year-old from the flyer he’d seen in McKensie’s office. It was Anna Marie Genet, the girl who had seemed so familiar to him that he imagined her sitting across the dinner table at Thanksgiving, like a sister or cousin.

  Baylor lifted her up and set her down on the other end of the long worktable. Matt noticed a body bag on the counter halfway down. His first thought was that the doctor would stuff the girl inside the bag and be done with her. Instead, Baylor gave her a shampoo and bath, then hosed her down, like an animal at the zoo. After toweling her dry and smearing her underarms with deodorant, he spent ten minutes styling her hair with a brush and blow-dryer. Once he was satisfied with her hair, he glanced at her face, pulled a stool over, and opened a makeup kit.

  Matt couldn’t believe the depravity.

  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing and wondered if he was even awake. A thought surfaced. The seven Ps carved into Virgil’s forehead, each one removed by an angel as he passed through the seven terraces of the seven deadly sins. And then something else came to mind. The girl’s father was traveling from Chicago to LA tonight. For whatever reason, the doctor, the grief collector, was planning to take another human being’s soul and break it open like an egg.

  “What the hell did your parents do to you, man?”

  Baylor looked up, surprised. “You’re back. How are you feeling?”

  “What did they do to you?”

  The doctor smiled as he considered the question. “I’ve never been one to think that Freud had much to say, Matthew. Sorry if that’s a disappointment. My parents were two loving, nurturing, gentle souls who did their best to raise me and my three sisters in a tranquil, educated, and cultured environment.”

  “Then what happened to you? You’re obviously out of your mind.”

  He laughed. “Who isn’t these days? When was the last time you turned on a television?”

  “Where’s Laura?”

  “Tied up, I’m afraid.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the sunroom,” he said. “Sleeping.”

  “Then you didn’t hurt her. She’s alive.”

  The doctor nodded. “I haven’t quite decided what to do with the two of you yet. I thought we might talk it over if there’s time.”

  Baylor turned back to the girl and started applying makeup to her face. Matt took a moment to get his bearings. He thought that he remembered seeing the sunroom at the other end of the hallway as he was helped downstairs, but he couldn’t be sure. Even worse, how could he take the word of a man who had murdered so many people? So many young women?

  He thought about Laura being dead, then used all of his strength to block the image and push it out of his mind.

  He filled his lungs with air and exhaled. He could see his gun on the far counter by the camera. On the rack above the vase of dead flowers, he noted the shears hanging beside a variety of other gardening tools. He gazed down at his chest. The blood had been washed away, the wound bandaged. Two of the three IV bags were still hanging from the irrigation pipe and connected to the catheter in his arm. While his arms and legs weren’t bound, they didn’t need to be. The weakness was so overwhelming, he felt like an i
nsect that had been glued down and placed inside a picture frame.

  “I can’t move,” he said.

  “I’m guessing it’ll be a while. I pulled the anesthetic, but all good things take time.”

  Several moments passed with Matt watching the plastic surgeon hover over the girl with his makeup kit. When she began to stir ever so slightly, Baylor produced a syringe from his coat pocket and injected something into her thigh, as if the moment had been expected and planned for.

  But all Matt could feel right now was an overpowering wave of fear. He searched for his voice. Something steady that wouldn’t reveal his thoughts or emotions.

  “I don’t believe the things you said, Doctor. Something happened to you when you were a child. Something horrible. Your life was anything but tranquil. Your parents, anything but loving.”

  “And you called your father what, Matthew? Dear old Dad? He walked out on you and your mother. He left you high and dry when you were only a boy.”

  Matt grimaced at the memory. “How would you know that?”

  “I recognized you the moment you walked into my office. I told you that. You have your father’s face, you have his name, but you don’t even get a mention in his biography.” The doctor took a moment to think it over, then spoke in a voice that seemed softer and more gentle. “Let’s just say that it was a safe guess, Matthew. And that while you were under the anesthetic, I asked a few questions, and you answered back. I know about your mother’s death from breast cancer. I know that your father, M. Trevor Jones—chairman of the board, president, and CEO of PSF Bank of New York, one of the five largest banks in the United States—M. Trevor Jones, the reigning King of Wall Street, refused to recognize your existence. I know that in the end you were raised by your aunt in a modest home and that you loved her very much. As you said yourself, she was a woman of uncommon grace and intelligence, a woman who loved the arts as much as she loved taking care of you.”

  Matt tried to ignore the feelings welling up inside his gut and clenched his teeth. “Was Millie Brown your first, or are there others, Doctor?”

  Baylor noticed the shift in subject matter and seemed amused by it, maybe even saddened, then cheered up as he got back to work on the girl’s face.