The Lost Witness

by Robert Ellis

  “Or a greedy Good Samaritan. We need to pull the surveillance video from the lobby. He made the delivery late yesterday morning.”

  “I’ll get things started. When are you coming in? Klinger’s been asking for you.”

  “As soon as I run Jane Doe’s photo by McBride’s mother.”

  “There’s no need,” he said. “I just got off the phone with her. She saw the news last night and talked to most of her daughter’s friends. The TV stations posted the pictures on their Web sites so everybody can see them now. Her friends don’t know her, either. It’s a dead end.”

  Lena tossed it over without responding. She hadn’t expected a connection between Jane Doe and the real Jennifer McBride and thought that there was enough information out there for the victim to have stolen the identity outright. Still, there was always that feeling of hope flickering in the background. Hope that she might be wrong and the answers would come more quickly. She had thought it would turn out this way, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed.

  “What about the help line?” she asked.

  “Three people called to order pizza. It’s a downhill ride from there.”

  Lena shifted lanes and made a U-turn at the corner, heading for the 10 Freeway.

  “I’ll see you as soon as I can,” she said.

  She closed her phone and slipped it into her pocket. Over the past few years it had become increasingly difficult to find witnesses willing to speak up. The trend began with gang crimes and new rounds of witness intimidation that included kidnapping, torture, and often times, murder. As the word spread through news stories and the worst of hip-hop, fear gripped the city and the witness pool for all sorts of homicide investigations began to dry up.

  Snitches wear stitches.

  For Lena those three words were more than the code of the street. They were a warning beacon, a reminder of how frail a society can become. How easily ignorance and nihilism can take root when so many people have stopped watching.

  She tried to shake off the bad vibes—tried to keep her mind off the personal reasons why the one witness they knew about probably wouldn’t step forward. After hitting the Fourth Street ramp and accelerating onto the freeway, she found the left lane and switched on her CD player. Flipping over to the last disc, she thought about Klinger, skipped to track 2 and hit play. The cut she wanted to listen to was called Stop, a digital remaster of the album Super Session, recorded by Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield, and Stephen Stills nine years before she was even born. She had discovered a vinyl copy in her brother’s recording studio and liked it so much she bought the CD. That was six months ago, and the album still held a spot in her five-disc player. As the music started, she settled back in her seat and felt her body relax some.

  The case was beginning to take shape. With Fontaine uncovered and the discovery of the cash in the victim’s bank account, the investigation was finally beginning to move forward. Yet, she couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong. She hadn’t slept well last night, tossing and turning in spite of the wine. She didn’t understand why the detectives from Internal Affairs were parked outside her house. Why they would risk their careers by tapping her phone. And she wasn’t sure she should mention it to anyone until she had a better read on why they were really there. Why did Klinger and Chief Logan feel the need to keep such close tabs on her? Why did someone from the sixth floor—probably Klinger himself—call the press on the night Jane Doe’s body was discovered in Hollywood? Why did he want to make sure that everyone knew her name was attached to the case?

  The more she thought it over, the more worried she became that she was missing something important. That she had become lost in the details of a complicated investigation and wasn’t seeing the big picture. The key ingredient that made it all move.

  By the time she reached Parker Center, she could feel the dread following her into the elevator. She rode up to the third floor and found the bureau empty, a picture of Fontaine from the DMV on Rhodes’s desk. Hiking up the back steps to SID, she spotted Henry Rollins, a forensic analyst from the photographic unit, working at a computer terminal equipped with a double set of flat-panel monitors. The overhead lights were off, the room darkened.

  “What are you doing here on a Saturday?” she asked.

  He grinned, but looked tired. “I’ve got your video up,” he said. “I’m cutting the shots together. It’ll only take a second.”

  Lena entered the room, pulling a chair over and handing him the DVD Avadar had given her.

  “Video from the ATMs,” she said.

  “We’ll run them side by side.”

  “Where’s Rhodes?”

  “He walked out to make a phone call.”

  Rollins turned back to the pair of twenty-one-inch monitors, streaming through a series of shots so quickly that the images didn’t register as anything more than digital noise. He was creating a time line and pulling shots already previewed from an open window on the second monitor. The shots were no bigger than thumbnails and hard to see. As Lena moved closer, she realized that Rollins was doing more than just piecing together surveillance video from the cameras hidden in the lobby. He had taken the extra step and pulled shots from the cameras overlooking the street outside Parker Center.

  She sat back in the chair and watched him finish the time line, then quickly download the video clips from the bank. She had never worked with Rollins before, but knew him because of their mutual friendship with Lamar Newton, the crime scene photographer assigned to the case. Rollins was young and lean with bright eyes and a dark complexion. He was just three years out of graduate school from UCLA. Although he never talked about it, Lena had heard rumors that the police departments in New York, Chicago, and Miami had tried to lure him away with offers of a signing bonus. According to Newton, Chief Logan had become involved and convinced Rollins to stay in Los Angeles. At the time bidding wars for new recruits were rare, but now the practice was commonplace.

  Rhodes entered the room and grabbed a chair. “Are we close?”

  “We’re almost there,” Rollins said.

  Rhodes turned to Lena. “I just got off the phone with Tito,” he said. “Fontaine’s hired a couple of bodyguards.”

  “He saw them?”

  “Yeah. From the neighbor’s house. Two guys taking a smoke break in the backyard.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Tito’s gonna knock on Fontaine’s door and see if he wants to talk about it.”

  Their eyes met, that feeling of dread still working through her body. When she finally turned back to Rollins, he moved the cursor to the start of the time line, hit the spacebar on his keyboard, and both videos started rolling. As they watched, Lena couldn’t help thinking that the edited sequence felt more like a finished work than raw surveillance footage. And there was something spooky about the images, almost as if she was watching a crime unfold before her eyes. Rollins was cutting from camera to camera, following the messenger’s progress from the moment he exited the underground garage one block up and started walking down North Los Angeles Street. Although the camera angle was high, the images were in color and far clearer than the video from the ATM machines playing on the second monitor. Lena could see the package underneath the messenger’s arm. She could see him turning his face away and looking at the ground as he passed two cops on the sidewalk.

  “It gets better,” Rollins said. “As soon as he walks inside, it gets a lot better.”

  Lena checked the second monitor, watching the kid work the ATM machine and steal the victim’s daily cash limit. She noted the Dodger cap and leather jacket, focusing on the shape of his mouth and chin. When she turned back to the first monitor, she watched the messenger dressed in the same clothes enter Parker Center and cross the lobby to the front desk.

  It was him. There could be no doubt that the messenger was the same kid standing before the ATM machine, and most likely, the same person who witnessed Jane Doe’s abducti
on on the night of her brutal murder. Eighteen or nineteen with long brown hair and pale skin. The thin and nervous type with dark circles under his eyes. Wasted and scared, she thought. A user in need of another hot load. Someone from the streets with a pocket full of free money and no address.

  “He’s rolling his eyes underneath the hat,” Rhodes said.

  Rollins pointed to the image. “He knows that the cameras are there, but he’s not sure where they are. He’s trying to find them without anyone noticing. He doesn’t realize that it’s hopeless. He’s walking right into the shot.”

  Lena turned back to the monitor as the kid moved closer. The camera was right in front of him, recording every expression on his face. Every blink and every breath. Yet, he couldn’t find the lens. He couldn’t hide below the bill of his baseball cap. When he stopped at the front desk, Lena noticed the lunch stand in the background. The two cops taking the package were talking to another cop buying a sandwich. All three were laughing as if someone had just hit the punch line in a good joke. No one was paying any attention to the kid moving quickly across the lobby and back out the door.

  Lena watched the monitor as Rollins cut back to the surveillance cameras outside the building and followed the kid up the street.

  “Keep your eyes on the sidewalk,” he said. “Same side. Half a block up.”

  She followed the sidewalk up to the corner. Two beats later, she realized that she had been picked up by the camera and was in the shot. She remembered walking back from the Blackbird Café after the autopsy and her run-in with Denny Ramira, the crime beat reporter from The Times. The kid was eyeing her as they finally reached each other on the sidewalk. But this time he didn’t turn away. Instead, he held the look before making a hard left and vanishing into the underground garage.

  What struck Lena most about the surveillance video wasn’t the lack of attention paid on the messenger by the two badges working the front desk. Nor was it the coincidence of her passing the kid on the street. Both were innocent acts that carried no meaning or context without the benefit of hindsight. What struck her most was the effort the kid had made to deliver the package to her. She thought about what she found in the mailer. Jane Doe’s driver’s license and the short video of her abduction recorded with his cell phone. It seemed clear that the kid lived on the Westside. That he had made every effort, however unsuccessful, to avoid their surveillance cameras. So why didn’t he take the easy way out and just send the package through the mail?

  As Lena considered the possibilities, new questions surfaced. If the kid possessed a guilty conscience, then why was he stealing the victim’s money? He would have seen the balance on the ATM machines and known that there was a lot of it. If he wanted the money, then why did he take the time and risk to hand-deliver the package? If he hadn’t made the delivery he could have bled the account dry over two or three weeks before anyone noticed.

  It was another loose end in a case of loose ends. Another detail that didn’t make sense.

  She turned back to the monitor. Rollins held the shot on the garage for another minute or two, but a car never came out. Their witness was in the wind.

  “I fast forwarded through the next thirty minutes,” Rollins said. “Every car that exited the garage turned up Temple Street, but he wasn’t in any of them. Maybe he just went into the food court and got something to eat.”

  “Or, maybe he knew the cameras were on the street and was looking for a way to disappear,” Rhodes said. “How fast can you make prints of his face?”

  “I’ve already got them. I made the prints when I pulled the shots.”

  Rollins reached for the photographs in the printer tray and passed them out. When he glanced at the doorway, Lena turned and saw Klinger begin walking into the room. He had been watching them. Eavesdropping. He hadn’t started moving until he was noticed. Until she turned.

  Rollins handed the lieutenant a copy of the image. Klinger examined the photo, then looked at Lena as if nothing was wrong.

  “This isn’t a serial case, is it?”

  “No,” she said. “Everything points to someone who’s highly motivated.”

  “But how do you account for the fact that he dismembered the body?”

  “He needed a way to get rid of her. He’s doing things the way he knows how.”

  It sat there for a moment with Klinger tossing it over.

  “Well, at least you’re making progress, Gamble. Everyone understands the setbacks. I’ll see if we can get this picture of the witness on the news tonight. Maybe someone will know who he is. We’re due for a little luck. Maybe they’ll call.”

  She met Klinger’s eyes, thinking about the tap on her telephone and those two detectives from Internal Affairs. She tried to get a read on him, but only picked up this odd sensation of goodwill. She didn’t believe it. And she didn’t trust it. When his cell phone rang and he stepped away to take the call, his eyes never changed and remained clear and steady and free of any irony.

  Lena let the thought go and turned back to Rollins. “What’s the status of the video sent by the witness?”

  “That’s why I’m here today. That’s what I wanted to show you.”

  He turned back to the computer, minimizing the open windows and launching another program. Two more windows opened on the large screen. The first photograph was the still that had been sent to the TV stations. The shot taken from the parking lot of the killer standing over Jane Doe’s body in the dark of night. As Lena gazed at it, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed. The man remained hopelessly out of focus. And the building with the neon sign on its roof still appeared lost in digital noise.

  When she looked at the second image, she stood up and moved closer. There were six faces on the screen. Six men with similar features and grayish blond hair. The head shots had the look and feel of a six-pack—a photographic lineup—for witnesses attempting to make an ID.

  She turned to Rollins. “What is this?”

  “The man who murdered Jane Doe.”

  Rhodes moved in beside her, eyeing the screen. “Which one?”

  “All of them,” Rollins said. He pointed to the photograph taken from the witness’s video clip. “The image we pulled from the video may be out of focus, but the information’s still there. This six-pack is a digital reconstruction of the killer’s face. The six most likely ways to configure the man’s face based on the information in that photo.”

  Klinger ditched his phone call and stepped in beside Rollins. Lena turned back to the monitor. The images were ultraclear. Ultravivid. As she examined the faces, committing them to memory, it seemed too good to be true. The young forensic analyst had everyone’s attention now.

  “The man you’re looking for resembles each of these six faces in some fundamental way,” he said. “We won’t know how close they are until you actually find him. But I’ll make you this guarantee. When you finally meet this guy, he’ll look familiar. Very familiar.”

  “Like they came from the same mother,” Rhodes said. “Different but the same.”

  “Exactly. Variations on a theme of murder.”

  Lena traded quick looks with Rhodes. “None of these head shots look anything like Fontaine. We’ll need to get a copy of this six-pack over to USC Medical Center. If he trained there before going overseas, this might be enough to trigger an ID.”

  Klinger shook his head. “Barrera already briefed the chief on a possible connection with the hospital. That the man we’re looking for has a medical background. The chief wants to handle this on his own. That means any mention of the medical center never leaves this room.”

  Lena and Rhodes exchanged another look. But this time she agreed with Klinger and understood the chief’s motive. The doer’s only connection with the medical center would have been through a program sponsored by the Department of Defense. There was no reason to jeopardize the hospital’s reputation just because someone may or may not have spent a few months working in the emergency room. The situation could be handl
ed quietly, detached from the homicide, and achieve the same result.

  Lena turned back to the forensic analyst. “Is there anything more you can pull out of this original,” she said. “Anything that would help point us to its location?”

  Rollins grinned. Then he grabbed the mouse and zoomed in on a large white spot in the blue-black sky over the building.

  “I’ve been working on it all morning. This spot is actually a jet making an approach with its landing gear down. When I reconstructed the shadow and counted the number of wheels, I realized that it’s a big plane. The only airport that can handle something this size is LAX. So this place has to be somewhere directly east of the airport. Somewhere within a mile or two of LAX.”

  “It’s the Cock-a-doodle-do,” Klinger said.

  Everyone turned to the chief’s adjutant. His eyes were riveted to the photo.

  “It’s the Cock-a-doodle-do,” he repeated with certainty. “The best chicken pieces in LA. It’s east of LAX and right under the flight path just off the one-oh-five on Prairie Avenue. Internal Affairs has been watching the place for two years. Cops go there for takeout.”

  Lena shot Klinger a look. “Why is Internal Affairs so interested in where cops go for takeout?”

  “Because it’s a whorehouse,” he said.

  18

  The murder of Jane Doe was suddenly more complex.

  Lena may have been green, but she had enough experience to know that the art of closing any case was to keep things simple. To let her imagination and gut instincts light the way, but only move forward with what she knew.

  Dr. Joseph Fontaine was trying to hide the fact that he knew the victim. When questioned about the murder, he lied, threatened to hire an attorney, and rented two bodyguards. Jane Doe had stolen an identity and deposited fifty thousand dollars into her checking account six days before her murder. The source of the money had been intentionally hidden, pointing to blackmail. Based on a series of computer-generated images, the man who abducted her from the parking lot didn’t necessarily resemble Fontaine. Yet, the man who actually committed the murder and cut up the woman’s body shared Fontaine’s medical background and military experience.