by Robert Ellis
“We need a break from all this, Matt. A couple of good days.”
He nodded without saying anything, the smell of her skin intoxicating. Moments passed. Glimpses of heaven as she started rubbing her breasts against his chest—pure bliss, pure elation, pure ecstasy. He ran his thumb over her chin and met her eyes, their lips hovering through the air in a lazy, magnetic arc.
And then he kissed her—his best friend’s wife—lightly at first, gently, once, twice, both of them testing the waters before they stepped in.
He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t wait. He’d fallen for her, and both of them were alive.
CHAPTER 52
Matt followed Cabrera through the last security gate and down the hall at Men’s Central Jail. Lieutenant McKensie was sitting at a table in one of the visiting rooms when they entered.
“They’re bringing him down now,” he said in a scratchy voice. “He’s not gonna say anything, but I wanted to take another look at the son of a bitch, and I thought you guys might want one, too. It’ll make the bad dreams go away faster. You’ll sleep better.”
McKensie pounded the table with his fist, the heat and fire in his emerald-green eyes flaring up then easing some as he brushed back his white hair. Matt had been surprised by his telephone call this morning. Apparently, Grace had shut down. He’d only spoken once since his arrest, and that was a week ago during his initial interrogation. He understood his rights, he’d said, and refused any form of legal representation. Detectives from the Homicide Special Section saw their opening and had spent days trying to break the lieutenant down, but to no avail.
No matter what the evidence, no matter how many hours he had been deprived of sleep, Lieutenant Bob Grace was not going to admit that he had committed multiple murders.
Matt turned to the door. He could hear the sound of leg irons dragging across the tiled floor in the hall. The pace had a rhythm to it. A weary shuffle moving closer. After several moments, Grace appeared in the doorway, flanked by two guards. Matt watched the men guide his former supervisor into the room and over to the table. Once they shackled him to a chair directly across from McKensie and walked out, his eyes flicked back to Grace.
He couldn’t stop looking at him, staring at him. And in a single instant, he understood the meaning behind McKensie’s words and why he wanted to meet here.
It was more than just seeing Grace in this setting. More than the steel bars, more than the layers of meaningless graffiti that had been scratched into the table over the past fifty years by an endless line of losers. More than the fact that this visiting room wasn’t a visiting room at all but a cage.
Grace had changed over the past week.
He was dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit and seemed small and frail, even withered. Whatever battle he had been waging over his own sanity had obviously been settled and lost. Even the mad glint was gone. All that remained was the shell of the man—the ghost, the empty vessel—sitting before them and staring straight ahead, like a mannequin waiting for a spot in a department store window.
Matt glanced over at Cabrera and could tell that he was seeing the same thing. Then he turned to McKensie, who had been watching him and quietly weighing his reaction.
“He won’t eat,” McKensie said. “And he’s still on suicide watch.”
Cabrera sat down at the table, clearly amazed. “Is there any way he could be faking it, Lieutenant?”
“You mean like that asshole in Colorado?”
Cabrera nodded, his wide-open eyes still on Grace. “Yeah.”
McKensie leaned over the table and slapped Grace across the face. “The shrinks don’t think so,” he said.
Matt moved closer. In spite of the hard slap, there had been no movement, no reaction—just that wooden look in the man’s eyes.
“What if they’re wrong?” he said. “What if he wakes up out of this just the way Baylor did after he was shot?”
McKensie shrugged, then tapped his mouth with two fingers. “His family finally hired an attorney. We’ll see what happens. You got a smoke?”
Matt shook his head, digging a pack of nicotine gum out of his pocket. The lieutenant didn’t seem interested. As Matt pushed a piece through the foil wrapper and slid it against his cheek, he thought about the gun used to murder Hughes in the parking lot behind the restaurant in Hollywood. The finishing gun. The Glock 20.
He took a seat at the table. “What about his house, Lieutenant? Are you in the loop with Robbery-Homicide?”
McKensie nodded. “Everything’s coming from the chief’s office. They’re still at it. Same with Orlando’s apartment and Plank’s house out in the Valley.”
“What about the gun?”
“The Glock? It hasn’t turned up yet.”
Cabrera thumped the table with his fingers. “That piece is worth a lot of money.”
“It is,” McKensie said. “It’s worth a lot of fucking money.” He paused briefly, taking another look at Grace and sizing the man up. “I always thought this guy was a pussy. I always thought he was a piece of shit. Look at him. He’s blown his wad and doesn’t even know we’re sitting in the same fucking room. But it almost worked, didn’t it? If that deputy sheriff from West Hollywood hadn’t lucked out, you’d still be looking for the three-piece bandit.”
An image surfaced. Matt could see Hughes laid out on the front seat of that black SUV, his body coated in blood and shattered glass.
It seemed so long ago. So far away, yet still so vivid.
“Okay,” McKensie said. “Okay. I need to run through a couple of things with you guys. We need to do some business. Cabrera, you’re on leave for two more weeks. Internal Affairs wants another talk, so does Robbery-Homicide, then you’re back in Hollywood, reporting to me.” McKensie stopped and gazed at both of them for a moment. “That’s right,” he said finally. “I’ve been transferred to Hollywood. Jones, you’re going down to Chinatown. You’re off until the shrinks clear you—and before you say anything, let me give you some advice. Don’t turn this into something it isn’t. Don’t make it ugly. It’s just routine.”
Matt shot McKensie a look, then got up from the table and started pacing. Nothing about letting the shrinks in the Behavioral Science Section in Chinatown play with his mind would be routine.
“Why?” he asked. “Why me?”
McKensie stared back at him. “You’ve been through a lot, Detective. More than most. Like I said, it’s just routine.”
“I don’t think so. I think there’s more to it than that.”
A long moment passed. When McKensie finally spoke, his voice barely rose above the sounds of the jail drifting in through the open door.
“It’s the way you killed Plank, Jones. The protection detail from Metro Division. The two guys you locked up in the car. They witnessed the shooting. They’ve given their statements. The chief thinks that you need some time to sort things out. Not a lot of time. Four, maybe five weeks. Enough of a break to settle down and think things through. Look at it like you’re on vacation.”
Matt glanced back at his partner, then took a deep breath and exhaled. He could remember the rage he’d felt when he saw Plank crossing the lawn with the shotgun. He could still feel the adrenaline rush, still feel the blood dripping down his chest from the gunshot wound in his shoulder, still smell the gunpowder wafting in the air as he emptied both Berettas into Plank’s face and chest.
Plank got off lucky.
He died before the pain would have had time to overtake the shock that he was hit and it was over. Eddie Plank was a piece of shit. He’d reached the finish line. He’d run out of tomorrows. He wasn’t invisible and had no chance.
The memory blanked out. Matt checked his watch and glanced back at Grace.
All of a sudden he wanted to get out of here. His visits to Chinatown, the things he said, the way he acted would become a matter of record and could follow him around for the rest of his career.
He liked being a homicide detective. He needed it.
He tried to push away the fear and paranoia, and turned to McKensie. “What about Baylor’s house?”
McKensie gave him another look. “Why are you so pissed off, Jones? You’ll be okay. Nothing’s gonna happen. No one’s taking your badge away from you. No one’s taking your gun. The police commission has already nominated both you guys for the Medal of Valor.”
Matt shook it off. “What about the doctor’s house?” he repeated.
“The dental records match up to Joey Orlando, just like we thought they would. Dr. Baylor’s loose and on the run, and the FBI took over the case about an hour ago.”
“Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you say anything?”
The lieutenant sat back in his chair and smiled at him, his voice warm and easy. “But I did, Matt, as soon as I got the news. That’s why we’re here.”
A beat went by. Then another.
“Is there anything else?” Matt asked.
McKensie smiled at him again, but something had changed in his eyes. It was the look of open curiosity. An inquisitive expression that was working its way across his entire face.
“They’re not sure,” he said in an odd voice. “But the lab guys found a stain on the floor by Joey’s body. They think that it might be residue from a cable tie. They think that the doctor may have strapped Orlando to the table so he couldn’t get out of the house. They think that he wanted Joey to burn up in the fire. The FBI wants to talk to you, Jones. They want to know more about what the doctor said to you, and maybe more about what you said to him. They want to know why he killed Orlando but didn’t kill you.”
Matt remained quiet. He didn’t have any answers, just this vague sense that something was beyond his reach. Something didn’t feel right. Something was out of order or incomplete or just plain wrong. He checked his watch again. All he wanted to do was bolt. All he wanted to do was get out of the visiting room, the cage, the darkness, and catch his breath in the bright sunlight.
CHAPTER 53
Cabrera got behind the wheel of the Crown Vic, started the engine, then flipped open the glove box and fished out a pack of Marlboros.
Matt gave him a look. “What the hell are you doing?”
His partner shrugged. “I’m addicted. I’m hooked.”
Matt laughed. “You’re hooked? Since when did you get hooked?”
“I don’t know. It just happened.”
“You smoked your first cigarette a couple of weeks ago, Cabrera. How many have you had since? Three, four, maybe five?”
“This shit’s mean, man. You see those ads on TV?”
Matt watched Cabrera light up then start coughing through his first drag. He didn’t even know how to smoke.
“Take that thing out of your mouth and throw it out the window, or I’m gonna do it for you.”
Cabrera shook his head back and forth, shielding his face with his arm as he took a second hit. Matt backed off and tried to get a read on his partner, his smile fading. Cabrera looked tired. Maybe worse than tired, like the nightmares had caught up to him and were gnawing at him in the dark. Matt had seen it overseas just as he’d seen it working as a patrol officer here in Los Angeles. Trauma had a way of playing with its victims. What might seem small enough to roll off one person’s back had the power to decimate another.
He watched Cabrera crack open the window and toss the pack of cigarettes on the console. After a brief moment, and without even thinking about it, Matt got rid of the nicotine gum in his mouth and lit up as well.
He already knew he was hooked.
“Where to now?” Cabrera said. “If it’s gonna be another two weeks, I need to grab some things out of my desk.”
Matt nodded. He hadn’t been working out of Hollywood long enough to have anything in his desk. Just his car in the rear lot. When they had gotten the call from McKensie, they decided to meet at the station and drive downtown together.
“It’s fucked up what they’re doing to you, Matt. About Plank, I mean. He killed cops, for Christ’s sake.”
“Yes, he did.”
“He was there to kill you, too,” Cabrera said. “Any one of us would’ve done the same thing. Even McKensie.”
“Maybe.”
Cabrera pulled out of the parking garage, passed the delivery entrance to the jail, and headed for the 101 Freeway. Matt sat back in the passenger seat, gazing out the window at the seemingly endless line of bail bond agencies lining the street.
Big Al’s Got D’Keys. Abracadabra’s Magic Carpet Ride. Freddy’s Freedom Village.
He stopped looking at them. He stopped seeing them.
Traffic was light, and once they broke through the surface streets downtown, it only took fifteen minutes before they reached the Hollywood station and pulled into the rear lot. Not much had been said along the way. Matt had spent most of the time thinking about what it would take to satisfy a psychiatrist and get back to the homicide table. For the rest of way, he thought about the gunshot wound in his shoulder. He didn’t want to dwell on it, but there was something new going on. A deep, burning sensation that he’d never felt before. He noticed it just before Grace had been ushered into the visiting room and shackled to the chair. It seemed to go away, but now it was back.
He climbed out of the car, gazing at Orlando and Plank’s Crown Vic parked by itself against the fence and thinking that it looked a lot like a ghost ship. After a few moments he followed Cabrera into the station through the rear entrance, past the holding cells, and onto the squad room floor. As Cabrera headed for his cubicle, Matt looked through the glass into Grace’s office and could tell at a glance that the two men using the computer and talking on their cell phones were feds. They spotted him just as quickly, waving him down the hall and into the office. As Matt walked in, the man wearing glasses with the light-colored hair and mustache switched off his phone and seemed glad to see him.
“I’m Jeff Kaplin,” he said. “This is my partner, Steve Vega.”
Matt shook their hands. “You guys out of Westwood?”
“No,” Vega said. “DC.”
“Lieutenant McKensie said you wanted to talk.”
Kaplin nodded. “We do, but not just yet, Jones. We think that Dr. Baylor may have committed another murder two nights ago.”
“Who?”
“Kim Bachman. She was twenty years old. She weighed less than a hundred pounds.”
“In Hollywood or the Valley?”
Vega shook his head. “New Orleans,” he said.
The idea had its own way of settling in. Dr. Baylor on the move.
Matt took a step back, measuring the two FBI agents as he thought it over. Both of them were in their midforties and seemed confident and at ease. But even more, both of them appeared to share an expression of being in a perpetual state of curiosity and wonder. Kaplin’s curly blond hair had started to turn gray. He looked like he was in decent shape—a walker, Matt guessed, not a runner, who came off like a university professor. His partner, Steve Vega, had black hair and dark eyes and a physical presence that would have to be considered Kaplin’s opposite. He was half a foot shorter and a good fifty pounds heavier but built like a powerhouse.
Matt leaned against the desk and turned back to Kaplin. “If you think it’s Baylor and it’s been two days, why didn’t the murder turn up in the news?”
“We needed confirmation that the body found in the doctor’s house was Joey Orlando. We didn’t get that until this morning.”
“Tell me about the girl.”
Kaplin brushed his thumb and forefinger over his mustache. “She was a college student. She was found like the others, but that’s all over the Internet now. Depending on how you look at it, the murder could have been committed by anybody—but we don’t think so.”
Matt kept his thoughts to himself. It all seemed too neat and too quick. New Orleans would have been a new setting for Baylor. A new city. And the doctor had been wounded. How could it even be possible? How could he have been able to select his next victim with so little
time?
“What about the girl’s parents?” he asked.
Vega opened a file folder and pulled out an e-mail from the New Orleans Police Department that included several crime-scene photos of the girl’s nude body staked to the ground, along with before and after shots of her face. Until two days ago Kim Bachman had been an innocent-looking young brunette with light brown eyes. Now her face was mutilated, the moment of her death frozen in a grotesque smile that stretched from ear to ear. Matt stared at the photograph, still unable to comprehend how anyone, no matter what their psychological issues, no matter what their past, could do this to another human being, or any living thing. It almost seemed as if the killer intentionally picked out the most pure, the most gentle, in order to underline their transformation from all that was beautiful in this world to all that was hideous.
Matt checked the first page. According to the time and date stamp on the header, the e-mail had been sent in the last hour and must have been printed here at the station. He thought about that pack of nicotine gum in his pocket, nixed the idea, then looked over at Kaplin and Vega, who seemed to have quieted down.
Both of them were staring at the before and after snapshots of the girl’s face. And their expressions had changed. That perpetual state of curiosity and wonder no longer seemed so enduring. Matt didn’t need to ask why.
“Tell me about her parents,” he repeated in a quiet voice.
Vega nodded like he was trapped in a state of delirium. Once he managed to raise his eyes, Matt collected the e-mail printouts and returned them to the file.
“She has a mother,” Vega said. “Heidi Bachman. Her father died in his sleep five years ago from a heart attack.”
“What does the mother do?”
“She’s a caregiver. A hospice nurse living in Baltimore.”
“Did you guys get a copy of my statement?”
Kaplin and Vega nodded.
“Then you know the doctor’s motive,” Matt said. “It’s more about the parent than the actual victim. It sounds like Heidi Bachman committed herself to helping others. There’s no way that a hospice nurse would make Baylor’s list.”
