Murder Season

by Robert Ellis

  Leafing through the papers, he found another copy of the cell-phone bill and set it beside the other two. Most of the numbers had been blacked out with a Sharpie—the bill featuring only those calls that came from Jacob Gant. But even a permanent marker couldn’t cover the text underneath once they turned the bill into the bright light. The number from the TracFone had been removed.

  A moment passed like they’d hit a gap in the universe. They were dealing with a dirty cop and a triad of dirty prosecutors.

  Lena lowered her voice. “You want to bet that the copy Paladino received didn’t include this phone number, either?”

  Vaughan still appeared stunned. “No,” he said slowly. “I wouldn’t take that bet. I think the same thing’s going on with the e-mails Gant sent the girl.”

  “How?”

  “I was reading these while you were on the phone. They don’t match, either. The version in the murder book Cobb gave you makes Gant sound like an angry man who’s threatening to hurt Lily. The version from the binder you found in Cobb’s closet reads like Gant was worried about her and offering help.”

  Vaughan set the two e-mails down. While Lena read them, he returned to his briefcase and found the version Bennett and Watson had used in court. As Lena examined the third document, she couldn’t help thinking about how much this ripped at her faith and trust.

  “They submitted an edited version,” she whispered.

  He gave her a look. “You ever hear of the Michael Skakel case?”

  She nodded. “Ethel Kennedy’s nephew. He was tried for the murder of Martha Moxley. They were kids. She was fifteen at the time.”

  Vaughan pulled a chair over and sat down. “The prosecutor took audio recordings of Skakel talking about masturbation and his fear of being seen and edited them to sound like he was confessing to the murder and afraid he might get caught. When Skakel appealed his conviction, the judge turned out to be just as ignorant, just as morally challenged as the prosecutor.”

  Lena reached for the murder book she had taken from Cobb’s apartment. The binder was stuffed with hundreds of documents that weren’t included in the book she had received from the detective just a few days ago. As she paged through the binder, she saw something she recognized and stopped. It was a copy of the polygraph results Paladino had sent to Higgins, Bennett, and Watson. But there was something stapled to the back of the report. It turned out to be a letter addressed to Bennett. A letter from Cesar Rodriguez, the forensic psycho-physiologist who had performed the polygraph on Gant. As Lena started reading she began to realize that Rodriguez was making a plea to Bennett on Gant’s behalf. According to Rodriguez, there was no indication whatsoever that Gant had anything to do with Lily Hight’s murder. In all his years working for the LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division, Rodriguez had never seen a case so clear-cut and was willing to champion Gant’s cause and put his reputation on the line.

  It was a plea that Bennett obviously saw fit to ignore.

  For Lena, reading Rodriguez’s letter burned in her chest like a white-hot sun drying up rain before it could hit the ground. Trial attorneys playing with the facts like politicians running for office happened every day. She knew that. But this was something different. Something beyond sleazy. Something beyond sick.

  “I want to meet with Bennett,” she said.

  “Why? You look pissed off, and these people are dangerous. I don’t want to scare you, Lena. But all of a sudden, we’re sitting in the same seats Bosco and Gant sat in.”

  She shook her head. “I need to see him about something. Would you call him for me? I don’t have his number.”

  Vaughan gave her a long look, but finally picked up the phone and dialed Bennett’s office.

  “Tracy, it’s Greg,” he said into the phone. “Is he available? I need to talk to him. It’s important.”

  Vaughan listened to Bennett’s assistant for several moments, then thanked her and hung up.

  “What happened?” Lena asked.

  “He’s not in his office,” he said. “He went to lunch.”

  “Where?”

  “Tracy said he’s with Watson.”

  “Do you have his cell number? Where are they?”

  Vaughan shot her another look, then lowered his voice. “She thinks they’re at the Bonaventure.”

  44

  The security director at the Bonaventure didn’t look like he wanted to play ball. Lena had asked him to use his pass key to open a tower suite on the twenty-fifth floor. It was clear to Lena that he knew the suite was leased by the district attorney’s office. It was just as clear to her that he had a good idea of what was going on inside. The only tangible card she held was that Roy Romero had spent twenty years carrying a badge and had been a good cop.

  “I’ll get fired,” he said. “And I like this job. I like it a lot.”

  “Whose to say anyone’s in there?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. Romero had more than a good idea. He knew.

  “No offense, Detective. But are you really sure that you want to go in there? Seems like it could get you into some trouble, too.”

  “No one has to know who pushed the card key into the door, Romero. Now are you gonna cooperate and work with the department? Or are you gonna prevent a detective from carrying out police business?”

  “Police business?” he said sarcastically.

  She liked the guy, but didn’t let on. After a few moments, he nodded in futility and motioned her over to the elevators.

  “I’ve always hated Higgins,” he whispered under his breath. “The DA to the stars. The guy’s a piece of shit. And these two blew that trial like a couple of fricking ingrates shooting blanks.”

  An elevator ride at the Bonaventure offered a view of Los Angeles like no other. If Lena hadn’t been thinking about the road she’d traveled over the past few days, she might have seen it. Instead, her mind was filled with a long series of stark images. She could see the bodies piling up; the lives of the victim’s families and friends ruined and left behind. By the time the elevator opened on the twenty-fifth floor, all she could see was Steven Bennett’s bullshit face.

  Romero led her down the hall. When they reached the suite, he gave her a last-chance look, then pushed his card key into the door. The light on the lock turned green and the bolt clicked.

  “You’re in,” he whispered. “And I’m fucking out of here.”

  Lena watched him hurry back toward the elevators as she entered and closed the door. She paused a moment, listening to them in the bedroom. The thrashing of sheets, Watson moaning, Bennett panting like a dog. As she crossed the living room, she spotted Watson’s bra and pantyhose on the couch, Bennett’s boxer shorts on the floor.

  She reached the bedroom and looked past the door. Bennett was on top, grinding it out with his mean little head buried between Watson’s breasts. In the past, Lena had always made a conscious effort to avoid looking at her breasts. She had heard the rumors—she couldn’t tell if they were real or not … and she didn’t care. But as she stood just outside the room, she couldn’t help but notice their unnatural shape and size and tendency to defy the planet’s gravitational pull. They looked like a pair of balloons filled with helium ready to fly off and pop.

  The image dissipated quickly, and she walked over to the bed as if she were entering Bennett’s office and everything was copasetic.

  For Lena, the moment was unfolding in slow motion. She could hear Watson gasp and shriek. She could see Bennett in panic mode—frantically pushing himself off Watson’s body, kicking his legs, and fighting to cover himself with the sheets. When Bennett started screaming, she opened her jacket and rested her hand on her gun.

  “Are you fucking out of your mind?” he said.

  “Probably.”

  “Get your hand away from that gun.”

  Lena shook her head. “No.”

  Those green eyes of his were big and glassy. And the hair on his body was as thick as fur. She could see fear pulsating through
his entire being. He didn’t know if he was safe. Lena knew that she had picked the right moment. The least likely moment.

  “I’m just trying to understand something, Bennett. I needed to see you.”

  “Fuck you, you stupid bitch. Make an appointment.”

  Watson slapped him. “Stop it,” she said. “And get this over with.”

  Lena took a step closer. “I’m trying to understand why the two of you destroyed evidence in the Jacob Gant trial. Why you deleted it, rewrote it, manufactured it, and corrupted it.”

  Bennett’s demeanor changed. His eyes hardened. He was speechless.

  “That’s right,” she said. “I know what you did. And that’s why I needed to see you. That’s why it couldn’t wait. I don’t understand why you went to trial when both of you knew for six weeks that Gant should have been cut loose. I’m trying to understand why anything that pointed to a more probable killer was ignored or suppressed or altered to look like it wasn’t even there. I’m trying to predict what’s gonna happen to everyone involved when the story gets out. All stories get out, Bennett. No matter how many people go down.”

  It hung there. All of it out in the open.

  Bennett traded a long look with Watson, then turned back.

  “That little prick was guilty,” he said.

  “Is that what you keep telling yourself, Bennett? Is that your mantra? Does it help you sleep at night?”

  “Gant murdered Lily Hight, you bitch. He deserved what he got. He deserved to die by her father’s hand.”

  It’s what she expected to hear. What she wanted to hear. The corporate line. It had two necessary components. First, Gant murders Lily. Second, Hight murders Gant in an act of revenge. It was clean and neat. It had a beginning and an end. Something that everybody could live with.

  Except that it didn’t work anymore. On any level. Not after Escabar was murdered.

  But she needed to hear Bennett say it. She needed to be sure. She gave them a last look, hiding beneath the sheets. Then she closed her jacket and walked out, feeling dizzy. Sometimes the truth did that.

  45

  Sitting for a moment in her car, she still felt light-headed. She had broken into Cobb’s apartment, walked in on Bennett and Watson’s lunchtime love fest and shown her hand, spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening at her desk bringing her own murder book up to date.

  She needed to eat something and get some rest.

  She checked her rearview mirror as she drove through the hills on her way home. No one was following her. She’d kept an eye out for Dick Harvey, but hadn’t seen him all day. She hoped that the gossip reporter had moved on to another story.

  The radio was still tuned to 88.1 FM out of Long Beach. They were playing Robert Glasper’s “Of Dreams to Come”—and she found the piano music more than soothing. As she pulled into her drive and parked, she listened until the jazz piece ended.

  She walked into the house, dumping her briefcase on the couch and heading for the kitchen. But as she stepped around the counter, she noticed the light blinking on her telephone. She checked the caller ID, but didn’t recognize the number. When she listened to the message and heard Debi Watson’s voice, she pulled over a stool and sat down.

  Her risk had paid off. Watson wanted to talk.

  But even better, the deputy DA sounded anxious and had left her home phone number. There was the chance that she had something real to say.

  Lena checked the time and entered the number into the handset. After four rings, Watson’s service picked up so she left a message that included her cell number. Returning the phone to its cradle, curiosity began to work on her and she hoped that Watson would call back tonight. She glanced at her briefcase, her energy returning. But as she climbed off the stool, time seemed to shoot forward and break in half before her eyes.

  She heard a loud pop—then shielded her face as a wave of shattered glass burst through the air and crashed into the room. Ducking out of the way, she turned just as a cast-iron chair from the terrace bounced off the living room wall. But she didn’t turn back quickly enough. She didn’t see Dan Cobb charging through the broken slider as much as she knew it was him.

  He hit her hard. He blindsided her with all his weight, and tackled her to the ground.

  Lena smashed onto the hardwood floor and felt the air rush out of her lungs. He was on top of her now. He pulled her gun away and tossed it by the couch, pressing his hand over her face and pushing her head down.

  She forced herself to breathe. After two quick gasps, she drew in more air, then rocked her body onto her side and tried to squirm out from underneath. She kicked him in the stomach and chest, kept her feet moving, and tried to pull herself away. She reached out for the side table, but Cobb batted it away with such force that the legs broke off as it hit the floor.

  He grabbed her by the waist, rolled her onto her back, and reeled her in. He was on top of her again, grunting and groaning and using his body weight to keep her arms and fists still. He was pulling her hair and gripping her head and slowly working his way downward.

  She felt his hands close around her neck. His grip tightened and began squeezing the life out of her. She looked for her gun—tried not to panic—and saw it on the shards of broken glass. She knew it was too far away.

  She looked at his face, the sweat beading on his forehead. His nose looked broken—his goatee framing his clenched teeth.

  “You corrupt piece of shit,” he was saying. “You corrupt piece of—”

  She started choking. She tried to find his fingertips. Tried to pry them—

  “You broke into my fucking place. You stole my files. My fucking murder book. My fucking murder—”

  His grip tightened. She was dizzy again. He lowered his face into hers. They were nose to nose now. She could feel herself—

  “You’re the new fucking deal all right,” he said. “A total fucking fraud. A liar and a cheat, a thief and a dirty fucking—”

  She tried to find her voice. When the words came out, they broke up like a bad cell signal.

  “Kill me, Cobb. But it won’t make any difference.”

  His rage seemed to double. “It’ll be better.”

  “It won’t make any difference because they know.”

  He laughed at her and banged her head into the floor. She tried to pull his hands away. She couldn’t. She thought that she might already be dead. Everything seemed upside down.

  “They know you did it,” she said. “They know you shot Bosco and Gant.”

  He let go of her neck.

  She didn’t know why.

  She started coughing and tried to catch her breath. Cobb was still on top of her—his chest heaving, his face an inch away like they were lovers. Those wild eyes staring through her.

  “They know you did it, Cobb.”

  “How?”

  “The gun you used. It matched up.”

  “It matched?”

  “That drive-by case you worked with Bennett and Higgins. Eight years ago in Exposition Park. Elvira Wheaten and her grandson. You pulled the gun from Property. They have your request card. You did it. All four of you assholes are guilty. You kill me and they’ll hunt you guys down like animals.”

  His eyes were still on her, still measuring her as he chewed it over. He looked crazed and still couldn’t seem to get enough air. After a long stretch, he rolled off of her body, then reached out and grabbed her gun, his mind a million miles away.

  “They didn’t make girls like you when I was growing up,” he said.

  “Screw you.”

  “We need to take a drive.”

  “So you can shoot me?”

  “No,” he said. “So you can see something.”

  “See what?”

  “You tell me when we get there.”

  “You’re a piece of shit, Cobb.”

  He handed over her gun and struggled to get to his feet. “No, I’m not, Gamble. I’m the guy who tipped off Paladino, and made sure that Jacob Gant�
��s DNA got lost in the fucking lab.”

  46

  She was sitting in the passenger seat of his Lincoln. Cobb had asked her to call ahead to make sure Martin Orth would be at the crime lab. Once she had confirmation, Cobb called a sheriff’s deputy he knew to come over and fix her sliding door before the coyotes moved in.

  Maybe the world really was spinning upside down. Maybe she’d crossed over and died on the living room floor.

  She looked at him behind the wheel—his wild eyes pinned to the road. Another dust storm was blowing into the city thick as smoke. The freeway kept vanishing, then coming back.

  During the silence, she tried to make sense of it all.

  Cobb had turned on Bennett, Watson, and Higgins, and given Paladino the anonymous tip. First, Cobb had railroaded Gant, but then he’d given him the only chance he had at a NOT GUILTY verdict.

  She tried to make sense of it, but she couldn’t.

  He seemed so jittery. He kept checking the rearview mirror. He said he wouldn’t talk to her until they reached the crime lab. He wanted Lily Hight’s clothing brought to a room where they could be assured of privacy. He said that they would need a foam mannequin that matched Lily’s height and form as well. As Lena made the request over the phone, Orth’s voice sounded just as strange as it had this morning. Still, he agreed to the favor and told her that he would have everything ready by the time she arrived.

  The drive through the dust cloud took forty-five minutes. They found Orth waiting by his office door. Orth seemed more than surprised to see Cobb with her. But after a moment’s hesitation, he led them down the hall to a room with sinks and lab tables that hadn’t yet been furnished with equipment.

  Lena glanced at the mannequin, then stepped over to the lab table where Orth had laid out the girl’s clothing. Cobb walked by her and picked up Lily’s boots. Feeling the weight of them in his hands, he passed them over to Lena.

  “Tell me what you see, Gamble. And then maybe we’ll talk.”