The Lost Witness

by Robert Ellis

  Barrera came back on, his voice clearer but still anxious.

  “Something’s come up,” he said. “A dead body in Hollywood.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re close. The victim was found half a block north of Hollywood Boulevard. There’s an alley between Ivar and Cahuenga.”

  “Behind Tiny’s.”

  “That’s right. The alley behind the dive bar.”

  Lena had started to reach for a pen, but stopped. There was no need to write down the location. She had worked out of Hollywood both as a cop and a detective before her promotion to the elite Robbery-Homicide Division last February. She knew the neighborhood, even the bar and alley off Ivar. The crime scene was in the heart of the city, just one block west of Vine.

  “Do we have a name?” she asked.

  “I don’t have any details. All I know is that Hollywood’s already at the location, and that they’re gonna pass the case over to us.”

  Barrera was an ally. Catching the tremor in his usually steady voice, she sat down on a stool at the counter. Homicide investigations were usually handled by detective bureaus at the local level. For a crime to bounce up to RHD, the case was either high profile or particularly egregious.

  “Why us, Frank?”

  “It’s bad, Lena. Real bad. It’s a girl and she’s all fucked up.”

  “So, after eight months I’m back in the rotation because I’m close.”

  Barrera cleared his throat. “That’s the bad news. That’s the reason I called, Lena. The order came directly from the chief. I thought it was another OIS case like all the rest, but this time it’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what got me thinking. Either he’s getting pressure from outside to use you, or it’s some kind of …”

  Trap, Lena thought. Her lieutenant didn’t need to finish the sentence. She got it. The chief wanted her out and was hoping something might push her closer to the door. This case could be the fucking door.

  “What about a partner?” she asked.

  “You’re on your own. I’ll make Sanchez and Rhodes available if you need them, but you’re flying solo. Your orders are to report directly to the chief and his adjutant.”

  “Klinger?”

  “Yeah, Klinger. I just e-mailed you a copy of the chief’s schedule for the day. He wants to be briefed after you’ve had a look at the crime scene. Doesn’t matter what time it is. He wants a report in person as soon as you’re done. Even if you’ve gotta wake him up in the middle of the fucking night, you need to show your face. You need to be there.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  “Lena.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I talked it over with Rhodes and told him not to bother you. But he’s thinking the same thing I am.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “This smell’s like yesterday’s catch.”

  She turned away from the window and noticed that her fingers were trembling slightly.

  “When I picked up, Frank, you said good news, bad news. When does it start to get good?”

  He laughed, trying to cheer her up. “The crime scene’s in Hollywood. You used to work with Pete Sweeney. He’s your old partner, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Sweeney and Banks got the call. They already know it’s your case. They’ll work the day with you, then back off. You cool?”

  She nodded, then remembered that she was on the phone. She was thinking about the sixth floor at Parker Center and looking through the doorway at her gun on the bedside table. A Smith & Wesson .45 semiautomatic. The sun was low in the December sky and had moved to the other side of the house. She could see the rays of light feeding through the window, her pistol awash in red and gold. She had killed a man this year, in the line of duty. A shot made as she reached the end of the road. She thought about it every day, that view into the abyss.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  Barrera lowered his voice. “Good,” he said. “Then go slow. Go safe. And keep me in the loop.”

  3

  Lena tossed her briefcase on the passenger seat, jumped into her Honda Prelude, and fired up the engine. Adjusting the heat vents, she flipped the radio and found KROQ. But before she could even get the volume turned up, her cell phone began vibrating and she checked the display again. This time the news would be wall-to-wall bad. The call was coming directly from Chief Logan’s office at Parker Center.

  “This is Lieutenant Klinger, Gamble. Are you at the crime scene yet?” She shrugged. Klinger had to know that Barrera just made the call to her, so this wasn’t about information. This was about something else.

  “I’m leaving now, Lieutenant.”

  “You need to hurry, Detective. Shift to a higher gear.”

  This is the way it would be, she thought: Klinger and the sixth floor watching everything she did from a spot somewhere over her shoulder. She wanted to tell him that there was no place in a murder investigation for micromanagers or know-it-alls. That crimes were created in the imagination and that’s where they were solved. But she didn’t say anything at all. As she listened to Klinger repeat just about everything Barrera had said ten minutes ago, she realized how little she knew about the man. Their paths rarely crossed. Klinger was about forty with fifteen years on the force. From what she’d heard around the division, he considered himself an expert at crime detection even though he had little if any experience as an investigator in the field. Instead, Klinger spent most of his career working outside Parker Center for the Internal Affairs Group, renamed by Chief Logan and placed under the supervision of the Professional Standards Bureau. There wasn’t a working cop in any division that didn’t have a natural distrust for IAG no matter what they called it these days. And Lena was as surprised as everyone else that the chief made Klinger his adjutant when he took the job. The chief may have been drafted from another city, but he had to be aware that the morale of the department was in play. No matter what Klinger’s talents might or might not be, it didn’t seem like the right move.

  Her mind surfaced. Klinger had asked her a question, but all she caught was attitude.

  “You there, Gamble? You still with me?”

  “I’m here, Lieutenant.”

  “Then answer the question. Do you have a copy of the chief’s itinerary or not?

  “I’m all set,” she said.

  “Then you know how to find us no matter what time it is. Get to the crime scene, Detective, and report back ASAP. The chief’s keeping a close eye on this one. He wants to be kept up to speed on every aspect of the investigation. Is that clear? Every report. Every lead.”

  “Is there something I should know, Lieutenant?”

  He hesitated a moment, as if he hadn’t expected the question and was working from a script. “Every case matters,” he said finally. “This is no different than any other investigation, Gamble.”

  Lena understood what Klinger was saying because she lived it. But something in the adjutant’s voice didn’t ring true. Not by a long shot. It suddenly occurred to her why the chief might be paying so much attention to this one.

  It was the murder rate. He didn’t want it to reach five hundred on his watch. He didn’t want the black mark on his reputation. Yesterday they had been thirteen bodies away from the gold ring. Now they were only twelve.

  It was spin.

  The thought of it made her sick and she wanted to end the call. This was about appearances, not people. Numbers instead of lives. The chief and his adjutant weren’t thinking about the victim at all. They wanted the case closed quickly so that they could shift the focus with the press. If the chief was asked about the murder rate, he could point out that the number of cases solved had risen. He could manipulate the dialogue, and sweep the murder rate and the victims that went with it under the rug.

  “Anything else, Lieutenant?” she said.

  “Just one thing, Gamble. You’re a Los Angeles police officer. Act like it. Live the
part.”

  She heard the phone click. Klinger had hung up on her.

  A moment passed. She closed the phone, gazing across the drive at her house. A light breeze was pushing east and she could hear the palm trees rustling over the sound of the engine. She thought about why she wanted to be a cop. All the reasons she had signed up. She knew that she could handle this. No matter what she was feeling right now, she could handle this.

  She switched off the radio, pulled out of the drive, and started down the twisting hill toward Hollywood. Opening the windows, she let the cold wind beat against the seats until the rhythm finally changed and any thought of Klinger dissipated in the rearview mirror. She could feel the anticipation of working a real case again. But she could also feel the fear.

  The road straightened out when she hit Gower Street. As she passed the Monastery of the Angels, she glanced at the statue of the Virgin Mary on the hill, then grit her teeth and floored it all the way to Franklin. A few minutes later, she was rolling down Hollywood Boulevard and making the turn onto Ivar Avenue.

  She could see the coroner’s van pulling behind a row of black-and-white cruisers parked in the middle of the street. Yellow crime scene tape had been stretched across the sidewalk from the corner on Hollywood all the way up Ivar to Yucca Street. The Scientific Investigation Division truck was already here, backed into the alley and blocking the entrance. When Lena glanced across the street and spotted a news van and the video camera that came with it, she understood why. The SID truck had been placed strategically to hide the view.

  She turned back to the road. It looked like the lot across from the Knickerbocker Hotel had been taken over by the investigation. When she spotted a cop with a clipboard at the entrance, she signed in and found a place to park.

  That feeling in her chest was back, along with a moment of self-doubt that flickered off and on like a lightbulb ready to blow As she started down the sidewalk with her briefcase, she glanced at the hotel. Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had spent their honeymoon at the Knickerbocker. Elvis Presley had stayed there while shooting Love Me Tender. But that was a long time ago. Now it was a senior-citizen residence for Russian immigrants in a neighborhood that had hit the skids and needed a shot in the arm.

  Someone called out her name. When she looked across the street she noticed that another news van had arrived. A third was waiting for the light to change at the corner. She looked for a familiar face, but didn’t see one. As she turned back, she realized that it had been Ed Gainer, the lead investigator from the coroner’s office. He was waving at her from inside the van.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said. “You hear anything?”

  “Just the word Go.”

  He nodded, acknowledging the media. “The chief’s office made the call over the radio. Can’t believe they didn’t use a land line. They should know better.”

  Lena shrugged. Of course they knew better. Everyone who carried a badge did. If a radio was used, then the newsrooms were listening.

  She swept past the SID truck, wondering why the chief and his adjutant wanted the press here and thinking about the word trap again. But as she entered the alley, it almost seemed like someone had turned off the lights. The entire space was cast in a deep blue shade, the air thick with fragrant smoke from the grill at Tiny’s. Waving the smoke away, she spotted her old partner, Pete Sweeney, standing with Terry Banks halfway up. A handful of criminalists from SID were waiting off to the side as a burly figure with coffee-and-cream skin worked the crime scene with his Nikon and a motor drive. The photographer was Lamar Newton, another friend and ally she knew she could count on.

  As Lena approached, she followed the path of the camera lens until it became blocked by a trash Dumpster. Picking up her pace, she looked back at the two homicide detectives from Hollywood. Although Sweeney was a big, wide man with an extra-easy manner, he appeared extra pale and unable to stand still. Terry Banks seemed just as uneasy, the rich color of his ebony skin and buffed head misted with perspiration in spite of the cool breeze.

  Sweeney waved her closer. But when her view finally cleared the Dumpster, she didn’t see a dead body on the ground. Just five green trash bags, the one up front ripped open.

  “I’m sorry you caught this one, Lena. Real sorry.”

  Sweeney’s voice was barely audible. All she could hear was the din of the city, cut against the rhythm of that motor drive.

  She looked back at the trash bag. It didn’t take much to figure out what was inside. Something horrific. Something so horrific the case was bouncing up to RHD.

  Sweeney gave her a nudge and pointed to the black-and-white cruiser parked just behind them. A teenager was sitting in the backseat. The door was open, the boy handcuffed. His hair was long and brown, and Lena could tell from his soiled clothes and worn-out shoes that he was homeless. When he turned to look at her, she caught the zombie eyes and guessed that he was either a religious fanatic or a drug addict. When she saw his teeth rotting to the gum line, she knew that his drug of choice wasn’t Jesus. It was crystal meth.

  “The kid spent the day on planet X and worked up a real good appetite,” Sweeney said. “Best we can figure, he went Dumpster diving about an hour ago—fished these bags out and thought he’d landed his next meal deal.”

  “Merry Christmas,” Banks said. “Enough food to last the week.”

  “Who is he?” Lena asked.

  Sweeney glanced at the cruiser. “Danny Bartlett, sixteen years old from Little Rock, Arkansas. Ran away last August and ended up here. Only when he opened the first bag he was still fucked up. No meal deal and no nirvana.”

  “Just his own demons,” Banks said. “The fucker freaked out.”

  Sweeney nodded. “The guy who runs the kitchen over at Tiny’s heard the kid lose it and made the call. That’s as far as we got.”

  Lena turned back to the Dumpster. As Sweeney pulled a bottle of water out of his pocket and took a shaky swig, Ed Gainer from the coroner’s office finally arrived. Lena reached into her briefcase for a clean pair of vinyl gloves.

  “Let’s take a look,” she said.

  They stepped forward as a group. Slowly, but with determination. When they finally reached the green trash bag, Lena pulled open the plastic, spotted the long blond hair, and tried not to flinch.

  It took a moment for the horror to register. Another moment to catch her breath.

  The demons were all here. A young woman in her early twenties. Her body had been dismembered. Everything cut up. Even though her face had been damaged, her eyes were wide open. A bright golden brown.

  Sweeney and Banks stepped away. Lena could hear her old partner taking another swig of spring water like it was a hundred proof. Someone lit a cigarette. As she heard Gainer murmur something to his maker, Lena turned back to the victim and let it sink in. She understood that this was another look at a place where evolution had reversed course. She wouldn’t find humanity here. This case would be another walk beyond the last outpost of civilization. And she was without a partner. Flying solo and on her own.

  4

  Her first impression had been the right one.

  This was not a crime scene. The alley between Ivar and Cahuenga off Hollywood Boulevard was nothing more than the location for a body dump. A convenient location just three blocks from two separate entrances to the Hollywood Freeway. They could search every inch of the alley and find no evidence. Not a wallet, a purse, or anything that might resemble a murder weapon.

  Lena glanced at a criminalist from SID packing up his kit as she thought it over.

  There was no linkage. Nothing found here would point to the perpetrator because the victim hadn’t been murdered here. Instead, this was the place where she had been thrown out with the trash.

  Lena could feel the anger in her bones.

  If the perpetrator had made a mistake, she only counted one. The plastic bag the victim had been placed in didn’t match any other bag found in any Dumpster within five blocks. The plastic wa
s a commercial grade, thicker than any normal trash bag and a good 30 percent larger. Lena’s father had been a welder. The Denver skyline bore its shape and beauty from his work. She knew from experience that bags like this were common on construction sites. The extra-thick plastic held more weight and was less likely to rip open if the bag contained sharp objects like glass and nails, or in this case, a young woman’s jagged bones.

  Danny Bartlett, the runaway from Little Rock, had stoked up his crank pipe and just hit liftoff when he fished the five green bags out of the Dumpster. Lena had gone through the four remaining bags with a criminalist, then again with the kitchen manager at Tiny’s. The contents were from the bar and had gone out at 2:00 a.m. last night. According to the employee who tossed the bags, the trash had been picked up the night before, the Dumpster completely empty. None of the tenants sharing the alley had seen anyone drive through since they arrived at work this morning. So, it was a safe bet that the perpetrator got rid of the body between 2:00 a.m. and sunrise, then made the short drive north and vanished into the freeway system.

  Lena shook it off, stepping aside when she heard the coroner’s van backing toward the Dumpster. Gainer’s assistants had placed the trash bag inside a blue body bag and were zipping it up. Once the victim was loaded into the van, Gainer handed Lena a receipt for the girl’s corpse. The name of the victim was listed as “Jane Doe No. 99.” Gainer included the date, time, and address, but nothing else to distinguish her identity. Lena was surprised by the high number, but didn’t say anything. Like the murder rate, the number of unidentified victims would reset to zero with the new year. Still, the slate would never be clean.