The Lost Witness

by Robert Ellis

  Her eyes meandered across the ceiling, following the shadows into the kitchen. The wall clock over the stove read 7:30 a.m. She was still dressed. Still lying on the couch after a short and troubled sleep. And her cell phone was vibrating. On the table and bouncing up and down.

  She sat up and checked the screen. Although the caller had blocked their ID, she flipped it open anyway, said hello and listened.

  “Lena Gamble?”

  It was a man’s voice. Smooth as silk. Someone she didn’t recognize and couldn’t place.

  “Is this Lena Gamble?” the man repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Lena, it’s Buddy Paladino.”

  She was awake now. All the way awake.

  Buddy Paladino represented their primary suspect in her last case. But he was more than that. A criminal defense attorney who made his mark championing underdogs and attacking the LAPD after the ’92 riots. He enjoyed his work and he was good at it, bleeding taxpayers for hundreds of millions in damages. Most of his cases read like fiction, but Paladino had a special talent for picking a prosecutor’s case apart—no matter how solid—finding its primal weakness and winning a jury over with his soft voice and trademark smile. His million-dollar smile. That was more than fifteen years ago, his reputation as a dangerous attorney just taking flight. Now Paladino was in another league, a slippery heavyweight who represented only those clients who could afford his exorbitant fees.

  “My apologies for calling on a Sunday morning,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  Lena grimaced. If Dean Tremell had hired Paladino to represent his son, they could have picked a better time to tell her. Still, Paladino was the perfect choice.

  “You didn’t wake me,” she said. “How did you get my cell number?”

  “A mutual friend who wasn’t really a friend and is no longer with us.”

  Although it sounded like Paladino doing another one of his convoluted dances usually reserved for trial, it wasn’t. She knew the friend who wasn’t a friend and was glad the attorney hadn’t used his name.

  “What is it?” she said finally.

  “We need to meet, Lena. We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “I’d rather not say too much over the phone. But it’s important to me and I would regard it as a personal favor. I would be in your debt. Given the state of the world, you might need me someday. I need you right now.”

  Lena walked over to the slider, looking out at the city but not seeing it. Paladino was speaking in code. Something was wrong. She moved to the counter and grabbed a pen.

  “Where?” she said.

  He gave her an address in Hollywood and she jotted it down. Barton Avenue was off Gower, just north of Paramount Studios, directly across the street from the Hollywood Memorial graveyard.

  “Thanks, Lena,” he whispered before hanging up. “See you as soon as you can get here. It’s important.”

  She looked at her phone, spooked. But as she left the room, she felt a certain degree of relief that Paladino had used her cell number. Internal Affairs had spent another night outside her house. Although she was still forwarding the home number to her cell, the detectives monitoring her calls would hear the first ring before the telephone company’s computers rerouted the signal. Rhodes had called last night as he drove up to Oxnard to see his sister through her surgery on Monday. Lieutenant Barrera had checked in. And Matt Kline, a detective from Pacific Division, called to confirm that she received his Field Interview cards after canvassing the neighborhood in Venice and interviewing the victim’s neighbors. Kline had also taken the time to change the lock on the victim’s apartment. The new keys had been delivered with the FI cards. Sooner or later, the guys from Internal Affairs would figure out what she had done with her phone.

  She took a quick shower and changed, then grabbed a salted bagel. As she pulled to the end of the drive, she paused a beat and searched out the Caprice. She could see it through the tree branches, off the road to her right and around the bend. She could see it fading away in her rearview mirror as she turned left and hit the accelerator. Her mind was shifting gears faster than her Honda. She could feel her heart beating as she thought about the sound of Buddy Paladino’s voice. How strange it was that he had called her.

  Barton Avenue was a straight shot two and half miles down the hill from her house. When she reached the graveyard, she made a right and started looking for the attorney. The neighborhood had been lost a long time ago, hidden behind graffiti-covered walls and miles of razor wire. A mix of cheap apartment houses and pueblo-styled homes cut against single-story shotguns with wood siding and a full front porch. They were called shotguns because they were narrow, boxlike structures no more than one room wide. It was said that if you fired a shell from the front porch, the shot would make a clean exit through the back door. But the history of the neighborhood had more to do with the glory days of Paramount Studios and the need for low-cost housing. This was the place where set builders and lighting technicians and all those extras who made up the cast of thousands once lived. Now the neighborhood was in a state of ruin. Left behind by a world that had moved from black and white to color before going digital.

  Lena spotted a car that had been jacked up and left on cinder blocks. The windows were punched out, all four wheels stolen. As she pulled around the wreck, she saw an Acura RL parked on the right a few houses this side of El Centro. Buddy Paladino was stepping off the porch and waving at her.

  He wore a pair of khakis, an Oxford shirt, and a leather jacket. She had never seen him dressed casually before. Never seen him in public or print looking so bleak, so worried and concerned.

  She pulled in front of the RL. When he reached for the door handle, she popped the locks and watched him climb in.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  “Are you representing the kid?”

  “What kid?”

  She looked him over. The defense attorney with the million-dollar smile was visibly nervous.

  “Maybe you ought to tell me what this is about,” she said.

  Paladino nodded, then looked past her through the driver’s side window. “You see that house over there?”

  Lena followed his gaze to the shotgun across the street. The wood siding appeared warped and blistered from too much wind and sun. Two windows needed to be replaced and the screen door had rusted out and was hanging off its hinges.

  “I grew up in that house, Lena. I spent five years of my childhood in this neighborhood before we moved north. And you know what? It was better back then, but not that much better. The only people left are the Andolinis.”

  He turned and gazed out his own window at the Andolini’s house. A garage stood at the end of the driveway, but Lena couldn’t really see it. Although the lawn had been cut and the place appeared clean and neat, the roof needed to be replaced and the house was five to ten years past needing a decent paint job. Like every other house on the block, security bars had been installed over the doors and windows. Lena imagined the view for the people inside wasn’t that much different than the view from a prison cell.

  Paladino cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know that they still lived here. I didn’t even know that they were still alive. I guess when you’re only a boy everybody seems old. My family didn’t have much. Mrs. Andolini used to love to cook. Her door was always open. To this day I think of her every time I eat a slice of pizza. Nobody makes it as good as her. I’ve met a lot of people since then. No one’s ever been nicer.”

  Lena released her seat belt and turned toward Paladino. She let him talk it out, but it was difficult. A lot like watching a black funnel cloud on the horizon and counting the minutes until it arrived. Something horrible was waiting for her at the end of this conversation. She could see it on the man’s face.

  “The reason I called you, Lena, is that these people are part of my life. They’re good people. They’re poor people, and they’re very old. You’ve been t
hrough enough that I thought I could count on you to treat them right.”

  “What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  He met her eyes. “Let’s take a walk back to the garage.”

  They got out and started up the narrow gravel drive, the feeling in her chest growing stronger. As the garage behind the house came into view, she noticed a door cracked open on the right side of the building.

  “They rented the place out,” Paladino said. “They were afraid to call the cops because they thought they might get into trouble.”

  “Why would they get into trouble?”

  He didn’t really need to answer her question because they were ten feet away from that open door now and she could smell it. The harsh sour odor of tainted blood. Judging the foul stench by its strength, Lena guessed that there was a lot of it inside the dilapidated garage.

  Paladino stepped aside and let her pass. “They saw that photo on TV,” he said. “I guess the shot was so bad they couldn’t be sure it was him. The guy they rented it out to paid for the year in cash. Like I said, they’re poor. They needed the money and wanted to keep the cash.”

  “So you came down to check it out.”

  “They found me. I’m glad they did. I can help them now.”

  Lena’s eyes were fixed on the door as Paladino stayed behind her on the lawn.

  “The lock’s been replaced,” she said. “Who’s got a key?”

  “The guy changed everything when he rented the place.”

  “Does this guy have a name?”

  “He didn’t sign anything, but he called himself Nathan Good.”

  A moment passed with Lena thinking it over. Nathan Good.

  “How’d you get the door open?” she said.

  “I gave it a hard kick.”

  “You go inside? You touch anything?”

  “The door won’t open any more than that. I couldn’t fit. Besides, I know what death smells like. I talked it over with the Andolinis and gave you a call. I’ve been waiting on the front porch ever since.”

  She turned and measured his face, certain that he was telling the truth. Behind him she could see the old couple staring through the kitchen window. They looked frightened. Thin and frail and more ancient than old.

  She turned back to the door and noticed that the foundation had risen over time and the door wouldn’t budge. After taking a deep breath, she squeezed through the opening and peered into the gloom. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness and details became more visible, she made an effort to slow down her heart but couldn’t get past the chills. A meat hook hung from the rafters. Against the wall she spotted five buckets filled with a dark murky liquid. She didn’t need a criminalist to know that the buckets were filled with blood.

  The foul odor was so intense in the closed space that she became worried that she might faint. She turned around but couldn’t see Paladino through the crack in the door.

  “You still there?” she called out.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “You got a handkerchief?”

  “How ’bout paper tissues?”

  “I’ll take them.”

  A long beat went by before his face appeared in the doorway and he passed them through.

  “Is there a body?” he asked.

  “I’m guessing she’s already at the morgue.”

  “You okay? You want to open the garage door?”

  She had thought about that, but a breeze might disturb something important. She couldn’t take the chance.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  Her voice died off. She had just noticed the table on the other side of the garage. Covering her mouth and nose with a tissue, she located the switch by the garage door and flipped on the lights with her elbow. The table turned out to be a 4x8 sheet of plywood set on a pair of saw horses. She moved closer. One step after the other—her efforts to keep her heart rate down not working very well. She noted the massive bloodstains on the wood’s surface. The gashes left behind by a razor-sharp knife. The additional spotlights mounted on the rafters overhead.

  It was a makeshift operating table. Underneath the plywood, a 4x8 sheet of linoleum had been laid over the concrete serving as a blood catch.

  Her eyes flicked back to the meat hook swaying in the foul air. The five buckets filled with tainted blood. When she turned back to the operating table, she began to pick up patterns in the stains. Wisps of the victim’s hair, an arc of fingertips, and the stamp of a palm—impressions from the body so clear that they looked as if they had been silk-screened onto the wood.

  Something glistened in the light. She caught it out of the corner of her eye. Inching her way to the other end of the table, she found a carving knife laid out on top of a liquor carton. She looked at the knife without touching it. The drops of blood. Two smaller knifes were here as well, along with a black Sharpie.

  She paused a moment, adjusting the tissue over her nose.

  The garage had been cleaned, the floor swept. Whatever belonged to the Andolinis looked as if it had been moved to the back of the garage and stacked beside a workbench. When Lena spotted the trash can, she moved closer and gazed inside the plastic liner. Several pairs of vinyl gloves had been discarded, along with a smock, a pair of goggles, store-bought rags, and numerous sets of paper booties.

  Her eyes skipped across the workbench. She took a deep breath and pushed the foul air out of her lungs. Felt the chills begin to swarm her spine and shake it. There was a roll of parchment paper here. But even worse, a meat grinder had been mounted to the surface with a thumb screw.

  She closed her eyes and stepped back, thinking that she might be sick. Gathering her strength, she shook the thought out of her head and turned away. And that’s when she noticed the coat rack on the wall. She had walked right by it. Missed it as she took the horror in.

  The victim’s clothes were here. Everything hanging neatly from the hooks on the rack as if it belonged in the woman’s bedroom closet. A pair of jeans and a simple white blouse. A sweater. Her bra and panties. On the floor her shoes had been set side by side, her socks folded and carefully placed on top.

  Lena moved closer, picking up a light scent of perfume—the same fragrance that managed to cut through the stench at the morgue during the young woman’s autopsy. As her eyes swept across the rack, she spotted a string of Rosary beads hanging from the last hook.

  A moment passed. A long stretch of oppressive silence broken up by the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. She was thinking about Jane Doe, the young woman who had stolen Jennifer McBride’s identity and walked into this nightmare. She was playing back her last few moments of life in her head. She was thinking about what Art Madina had told her on Friday. That the killer had kept her alive for as long as he could. That her death hadn’t been quick or easy.

  The man the Andolinis knew as Nathan Good.

  Her mind surfaced. She noticed her breath as she exhaled. She could see it dissipating in the cold air as it passed through the tissue. Her body was shaking now, but she couldn’t tell if she was shivering or trembling anymore. Couldn’t tell if it was the December air working through her body or this living vision of hell closing in on her.

  She shook it off and headed for the door. Squeezing through the narrow space, she stepped outside and moved away from the garage as quickly as she could. The winds had changed direction. She could smell moisture in the air, the promise of rain. She could hear a door opening.

  “Come in and get warm.”

  She looked up and saw Paladino on the porch, but it took a moment to register.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. “Where are the Andolinis?”

  “Resting. I went through it with them before you got here. They’re tired. I figured you could talk to them later. You don’t look so good, Lena. Come in and sit down.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to get a grip on herself. After several moments she climbed the steps and followed Paladino into the kitchen. The room was sm
all but clean, the appliances dated. Moving to the sink, she turned on the hot water. As she splashed her face, she couldn’t help noticing all the prescriptions lined up on the windowsill. There must have been at least thirty different medications. A small house plant broke the line of pill bottles into two groups. An African violet in bloom. Taped to the sill on the left and right were the words HIS and HERS.

  Paladino gave her look, his voice quiet and gentle. “What was it like in there?”

  “Exactly what you think it was like,” she said.

  “Then this is the crime scene.”

  “This is it.”

  She turned off the water, her heart still pounding in her chest as she tried to think.

  “Your friends,” she said. “If they couldn’t get a read from the picture on TV, what prompted the call?”

  “Wednesday night. That’s the night of the murder, right?”

  She leaned against the counter and nodded.

  “He shows up here around eleven. Backs his car up to the garage. The lights wake them up. They told me he spent four hours in there. Didn’t leave until after three in the morning. He carried a trash bag out and it looked heavy.”

  “Did you ask them what kind of car he drives?”

  “A red Hummer. But they didn’t get the license plate. They didn’t have any reason to. They saw the story on the news Friday night. Yesterday they put it together.”

  Lena glanced at the coffeepot.

  “The mugs are in the cabinet behind you,” Paladino said. “But it’s not very good. I couldn’t drink it.”

  She didn’t care. All she really wanted was to shake the chills. She turned to the cabinet above the sink and swung the first door open.

  “The other one,” he said.

  She heard him, but kept her eyes on the cabinet. The shelves were empty except for a single can of tuna and half a box of rigatoni. She shot Paladino a look, then glanced back at the prescriptions on the sill. The Andolinis needed food and medication to stay alive, but couldn’t afford both. Something was wrong.

  21

  It had taken fourteen hours to process the crime scene on Barton Avenue. Fourteen hours to photograph it and dust it. Fourteen hours to log the evidence in, break it down, and carry the mess away. For Lena, it had only taken a split second to understand that the thoughts and images she collected and endured would haunt her for the rest of her days.