by Nick Keller
“What’s this all about? Looks like someone jumped the curve,” Neiman said.
“Wish it was that simple,” Derrick said.
“I’m assuming there’s a victim?”
“Yeah. We ran the car. It belonged to a Chrissie Newton, twenty-five, originally from some place called Genesee, Idaho.”
“Genesee? Don’t tell me. Aspiring actress.”
“Don’t know the particulars yet. She’s in the car.”
“So, I’m assuming the nose dive off Mulholland Road up there didn’t kill her?”
“Mmm—why don’t you have a look for yourself,” Smyth said. Neiman started past him, but Smyth called him back. “Yo, Neiman.”
He turned.
Smyth took a labored breath and said, “It’s pretty effective.”
“Thanks.” He plodded down the hill. From the looks of the car it had banged like a Ping-Pong ball off a number of the trees on its way down. Apparently, the collisions were what had kept it upright and prevented it from coming down on the roof. The driver’s side was caved in though, which indicated it had landed on its side, then righted itself once it came to a stop. The bumper was a mangled twist lying fifty feet up the hill, and plastic debris was everywhere.
Through the driver’s window he could see a splay of blonde hair which looked like it was well kept in life, and a narrow, ghost white arm resting along the top of the door like she was taking an easy Sunday drive, except for the blood. A coroner stepped away as Neiman approached. Looking in the car, Neiman’s breath caught in his throat and he had to look away. He blinked and forced himself to look back. There was no dermis. Her face was an oxen-red mass of muscle and exposed tissue. The naked eyeballs stared unblinkingly forward. A glistening jawbone and perfect pearly whites shimmered in a skeletal grin, as if someone had peeled her face off like a glove.
It looked particularly grizzly set with the rest of the body. She had been shapely in life, narrow shoulders with a strappy velum top, plenty of gorgeous cleavage, all soaked in blood.
“Jesus,” he moaned. Inspecting a few seconds longer he could see where the scalp just over her brow was left in place with all the hair intact, but a precision slice along the hairline arched across her forehead making her scalp look more like a shower cap. Everything below was striated muscle flesh. He looked back at the coroner and hissed, “What the fuck did this?”
The coroner shrugged. “That’s your job, detective, but when you find out, I want to know.”
Derrick came up beside. “She jumped the curve, alright. But that’s not what killed her.” He reached in wearing a rubber glove and gently lifted her mandible. Mark hadn’t noticed it from marveling at the girl’s missing face, but there was a slit in her throat. Not a long one, but long enough—and deep enough—to bleed her from the carotid artery. Her body’s blood supply had fallen down her front and into her lap.
“There’s your cause of death,” the coroner said.
“This is Dean Olday from the coroner’s office,” Derrick said.
Dean Olday extended a rubber-gloved hand. Mark glanced at it and declined to shake with an uncomfortable grimace. “What else?”
“So far, that’s about it. She wasn’t tied up—no ligature marks. She wasn’t assaulted—at least not physically. The lab will tell us more.”
Mark pointed to her arm resting on the door. Girls never crashed their cars off winding roads and left their arms leisurely draped across the door. “Who posed her?”
“Our good buddy, Mr. Suspect, I’m sure,” Derrick said.
Mark had to take a step back and breathe. He looked up the hill following the track the Mercedes had taken off the road and through the trees. His mind spun. There were puzzle pieces all over the place, he just couldn’t put them together yet. He’d have to take a few moments.
But there was one puzzle piece missing. He didn’t want to ask it, but he had to. He looked at Derrick and said, “What about her face?”
Derrick’s eyes went over and he pointed. Mark looked over. It was something out of hell, a nightmare of abstraction. Something he’d never even considered seeing. It made him dizzy.
The girl’s facial skin, kept perfectly intact, was stuck to a tree with a hunting knife through the forehead, as if the tree itself had grown a parasitic human twin and was staring back at him through the eyeholes.
This was no accident.
ONCE THE CORONER’S forensic teams removed the body, it was slipped into a bag and put on the gurney. The Evidence Control team was coordinating the lift off. Mark took a moment to step away from the scene. He’d always prided himself in having an iron gut. But if he’d learned anything being a detective, it was how occasionally the world taught him he didn’t really know anything.
The body was being reeled up the slope as Mark and Derrick made their way up the incline. Dean Olday from the coroner’s office paced behind. Crimes of this nature, this inhumane, were always a reminder of how closely God and Satan lived to each other. They were neighbors. They shared streets and schools and taxis. Sometimes they were even friends.
These types of cases also showed how interested the whole world was in criminology. Mark asked, “FBI want in on this yet?”
Derrick grinned bitterly. “Of course. They’re chomping at the bit.”
“Figures,” Mark said. “So, what’s this all about, Smyth?”
“Why you here, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“New inter-divisional protocol. The murder is Hollywood Station jurisdiction. But the victim is yours.”
“She lived downtown?”
“The Lehrman. She owns a flat there, off Alameada. At least, she did.”
“So, we’re coordinating the investigation.”
“You got it.”
“Huh.”
“What’re you thinking so far?” Derrick asked, interested.
“Early yet. At first contact, it’d be easy to say she took the fall, got trapped, someone comes along, does the deed. But… I don’t know. Seems pretty sadistic for a random encounter.”
“Yeah—just doesn’t fit,” Derrick said.
Mark turned back to Dean. “What do you know about time of death?”
“She was rigor. Stiff as a board. No one reported the accident. No known witnesses. Probably early morning. Between three and six AM yesterday. Thirty-six hours, minimum.”
It seemed to fit. Mark said to Derrick, “Notice her clothes?”
Derrick nodded. “Dressed to kill. She wasn’t making no milk run.”
“No clubbing, either. Not around here. What do you think?”
“Coming from a party, maybe?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. You going door-to-door?” Mark asked.
“I got some black-and-whites on it.”
“What can we expect from the Medical Examiner’s?”
Dean Olday said, “The usual. We’ll do a toxicology and drug evidence check, I’ll handle the tool mark analysis myself. Cause of death is pretty shut and dry, but we’ll check the body for outstanding injuries.”
“You won’t find anything major.”
“Makes you say that, Detective?” Derrick said.
“No one’s going to kill a girl after she already dies in a crash. She survived… for a while.”
From below, someone yelled, “Detectives!”
They turned around to see a Blue flagging them down. A suited forensics specialist came plodding up the hill. Once he reached them, the incline had him huffing and puffing. He showed them a discus vial with a threaded, clear plastic top. Mark took it and said, “What is this?”
“Specimen dish. Thought you’d want to see this before we got it back to the station.” He motioned for him to look closer.
The dish had smears of a colorless gel swabbed into it. Mark shook his head. “Okay.”
“Semen,” the guy said.
Mark flinched back slightly. “Semen. Where’d you get it?”
“That’s the thing. We got it from the
facial dermis.”
“Goddamn,” Derrick muttered.
“It was on her face?” Mark said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Yeah. It was also on the tree, under the mouth.”
Mark and Derrick made eye contact, both looking confused. Derrick said, “Someone stuck her face to the tree and jacked off on it?”
The forensics specialist shrugged, clueless. “Beats me. Looks like it, though.”
“That’s so fucked up.” Mark groaned. “Can you tell who’s it is?”
The forensics guy laughed. It was wishful thinking. He said, “Exposed to the elements—no way. We’ll run the tests, but with deterioration, getting a DNA profile, that’s doubtful.”
“Okay thanks. Just log it, get it to the lab,” Derrick said. The guy headed back off down the hill.
They moved back toward Mulholland crunching through the underbrush. Mark continued his previous thought in lieu of this most recent discovery, “Yeah—someone wanted her off that road. She didn’t run off. Someone ran her off.” Mark stopped and looked over at the body basket being reeled up the hill. It bobbed and jerked. The others stopped with him. “Then they cut her face off.”
“That’s got to mean something,” Derrick said.
18
BERNIE MAKES A FINE POINT
Through the L.A.P.D. Civic Special Attention database—which monitored noted establishments of interest—it took Bernie two and a half minutes to discover Fantasy Services LLC. was owned by a Troy Hillary, a.k.a. Mr. G, and headquartered out of his house in Laurel Canyon. He sneered. Another rich asshole needing a spider monkey beat down. He looked around privately and headed out of the station. He had some personal business which needed to be attended to. This was where his job was fun.
He pulled into the driveway off Clover Road thirty minutes later. The house was a gorgeous, red brick home with an exotic garden full of big, swooping leaves in the front and an elevated entrance. From the front, the house looked small, but somehow Bernie knew as soon as he stepped inside he’d be greeted with spacious living areas full of stone and tile, and a grand view of the canyons out the back window.
Heh…
He took the steps up to the arched, oak door and rang the bell pulling his sport coat around his belly. He didn’t need whoever was about to greet him seeing he was carrying a weapon.
The door opened revealing a guy with a slight build about fifty with a silk shirt tucked into white, French-made slacks. His hair was pulled back Latino–style and the look in his eyes was pure greasy smarm.
“Yeah?” he said.
Bernie looked past him into the house before making eye contact. He was right. The place was more than quaint. It was obsessively neat, and big. “I’m here about one of your girls.” He leaned forward and said, “Iva.”
The guy—Bernie figured this was Mr. G—grinned and said, “You must be Bernie.”
“That’s right.”
G swung the door open giving him a half-eyed, chumpy look and said, “I’ve heard about you.”
Bernie entered murmuring, “I’m sure it’s all good, too.” He inspected the place. The entryway spilled into the kitchen with a central island. A depressed living room was off to the right. Big, glass rear doors showed a picturesque back yard with a deck and a pool. Bernie whistled. “Does pimping afford all this?”
G closed the door and said, “Huh. Did Iva tell you where I live?”
Bernie looked back. “You weren’t hard to find.” He looked around. “I mean just look at this place. Gives me a boner just standing here.”
“Didn’t notice. What the fuck do you want?”
Bernie went to the kitchen island, a large, tiled surface with assorted, decorative cooking utensils and an antique, rotary-style phone, and said, “I’m here to give notice. She’s retired, as of now.”
G grinned. “Is that so?”
“That’s so.”
Appearing from the opposite side of the living area came a black dude who snagged Bernie’s attention. The guy stepped forward making his presence known wearing a red polo-style shirt stretched tight across a landscape of muscle, arms as big as horse flanks. The fella looked like he could bench press a school bus. Then eat it.
G stepped closer to Bernie and said, “Do you have any idea how many Johns try to muscle my product? Do you think you’re the first poor sap to fall in love with one of my girls?”
Bernie looked at him coolly. “I don’t care.”
G responded, “Hmm—you know how many actually leave my house, walking?”
Bernie smiled dropping his fedora onto the island and said, “One.”
“Oh, you think so?”
“I do.”
G gave him a knowing grin and said, “Ray Ray! Why don’t you show our guest here out the door?”
The meat-headed black guy—Ray Ray—moved through the living room grinning and popping his knuckles in loud, shotgun cracks. He stepped up into the kitchen and Bernie whipped out his firearm. Ray Ray halted, a calm, reserved look in his eyes.
Bernie absorbed him. He was massive, if not a few inches shorter. Still an easy six feet. But he was young—a full decade and a half younger than Bernie.
“You’re a big boy, Ray Ray. So, go on. Show me out the door.” Bernie waited for the invitation.
Ray Ray’s eyes shifted over to G, a smirk on his face.
“Mister, you have no idea what you’re getting into,” G said.
Bernie slid the rotary phone across the island and said, “You gonna call the cops?”
G pulled the phone over to him and said, “Maybe I will.”
“Don’t bother,” Bernie said, pulling up his badge and flashing it. “They’re already here.” G’s eyes widened a tiny bit. He had a look, like someone who’d been caught. He set the receiver into its cradle and took a step back. Bernie clicked his tongue and said, “But I’ll tell you what, Mr. G. What does that mean, anyway? Mr. Goofy? Mr. Girly-man? G spot?”
G smiled, insulted.
Bernie folded his badge away and put it on the island. Then he flicked open the chamber of his .45 dropping the rounds out into a waiting palm. He put the gun down empty, shed his breast holster and put it aside, and popped his own knuckles. “Why don’t big Ray Ray and me go out back there, so as not to break your little house?”
G grinned, enjoying his sudden turn of fortune, and shifted eyes over to Ray Ray. The meathead smiled, eager to get it on. G said, “Sure thing.”
BERNIE AND RAY RAY moved across a beautifully constructed raised wooden deck surrounding a flagstone pool, and stepped off into the back of the yard. The grass was an emerald even-cut green and smelled like sweet springtime. Granite fountains were placed around the yard trickling water from cherubs and ornate fixtures. A wooden fence separated the homestead from a mountainous drop-off of rock and scrub brush.
Ray Ray found his place and turned to face Bernie who was rolling up his shirt cuffs. Ray Ray spit, putting his dukes up. Bernie followed suit, the two of them eyeballing each other and stepping around in a circle, testing, reading. Bernie grinned at him showing teeth. Ray Ray squinted—and pow! Bernie shot a powerful jab right across his jaw. Ray Ray looked at him, a smile growing across his thick face, a tiny spot of red growing on his lower lip. Bernie sank a bit and murmured, “Well, shit.”
Ray Ray attacked throwing remarkably quick punches for a guy his size. All Bernie could do was fade and block. He punched back landing a shot that had no effect, and ended up stumbling into a raised fountain. Ray Ray came down on top of him. Water splashed over them as hands gripped scruffs. The two went rolling over and crashed down in an explosion of grass, each growling and moaning.
Ray Ray hammered his gut once, then twice robbing Bernie of all his breath. Bernie twisted the meathead over catching him off guard and the two rolled, making a pair of full revolutions. They hit the wood deck.
Ray Ray released and got to his feet, stepping back. Bernie sprang up, but got slammed in the face. He flew back taking t
he deck’s railing with him and thundered down. Ray Ray was on him, fists to the face. But Bernie snagged his shirt and yanked a full-on power tug which sent him into the swimming pool. He dragged Bernie across the flagstone with him. In a flash of changing environments, Bernie found himself fully submerged yanking at clothes and limbs. A knee caught him in the ear underwater and that’s when he noticed Ray Ray’s fully exposed crotch. He grabbed a handful of balls and squeezed hearing his adversary scream in a water-muted howl.
He came bursting to the surface and floundered for the deck. Once there, he noticed Ray Ray had ejected himself over toward the shallow end nursing his throbbing nuts. They eyed each other for a second. Bernie hoisted himself up and staggered to his feet.
Ray Ray took the pool steps at the shallow end emerging from the pool like a water god, pissed off and ready to kill. Bernie shook his head splattering water everywhere. They met in the middle, engaging again, throwing punches and counter blocks, elbow-shockers and futile round houses. Bernie went over the propane bar-be-cue grill slamming it to the patio floor. He heard Mr. G scream, “Oh, Jesus Christ, Ray Ray!”
Ray Ray dove down on him. Bernie evaded, rolling over, got up and hoisted the bar-be-cue up over his head growling under its weight. He brought it down on his adversary sending metal pieces and cookware all over the place. The propane tank doinked across the patio sending Mr. G for cover.
Ray Ray shook it off now bleeding from his forearms and elbows and got to his feet. He attacked, screaming like a madman, tackling Bernie backward into a shed. They smashed through the fiberglass wall and went slamming into a lawn tractor. The thing tilted over under their weight, hesitated at its zenith, and came crashing to the concrete pad with Bernie on top of it. He whaled out as Ray Ray picked him up around the neck and swung him in a full circle, crashing him through the opposite fiberglass wall. They both went thundering back into the grass as the shed came collapsing down in a cacophony of rending aluminum and snapping plastic.
“Christ, Ray Ray!” Mr. G screamed.
Bernie covered up. Too winded to strike back, all he could do was fend off one powerful blow after another. They knocked him off balance and jarred him mercilessly until he ended up staggering backward into the same fountain he’d fallen into to begin with. Ray Ray had him dead to rights. He pounded him with his fist like a piston—like a goddamn wrecking ball—bludgeoning him across the shoulder, the neck, the head. He pounded until he couldn’t pound anymore and left Bernie toppling half-conscious to the grass splashing more water from the fountain.
