by Robert Ellis
Bloom was having trouble talking about it. Remembering it. He became silent for a while, then reached for a plastic bag on the chest and handed it to her.
“This was the medication the doctor prescribed. He died about twenty minutes after his mother gave it to him. One minute he was breathing. The next minute he wasn’t. I guess a lot of kids have had the same kind of luck. The drug got pulled off the market, but it took a while. The FDA’s still trying to sort it out.”
Lena noticed the nebulizer on the chest, the child’s face mask, then examined the medication that had been sealed in the plastic bag. As she read the label, it felt like she was still standing over her grave in the desert. Like Bloom still held the gun in his hand and had just pulled the trigger. The drug manufacturer was Anders Dahl Pharmaceuticals. Dean Tremell’s name was even listed in the fine print.
Jennifer Bloom had never been a whore. She had been a mom. Another fallen hero like her husband. And the case was radioactive now.
39
She could see her house on top of the hill as the jet eased over the Valley toward Burbank and glided with the wind. She could see it in the blue light. Her small house standing over a city that spanned as far as the eye could see. Her anchor. After the plane landed, she walked down the rear steps onto the tarmac and out the airport exit to the parking garage just across the street.
She had spent the last hour staring out the window and letting her mind wander. Being alone with herself and watching the loose ends drop away on their own. The same way her brother used to tell her he could feel the moment for what it really was and improvise on his guitar.
The smoke Dean Tremell had sent up about this case had been the best money could buy. The best Lena had ever known or read about or could even imagine. As she paid her parking ticket and exited the garage, she couldn’t help but find Tremell’s expertise and attention to detail something to behold. Every possibility had been accounted for. Everything rigged so well that Jennifer Bloom never stood a chance.
The fake ad in the L.A. Weekly and the messages on her answering machine that it harvested after her death. The bag of tricks left in her closet filled with lingerie and sex toys, scented oils, and plenty of prescription drugs. He even gave her a company line. The woman who cast spells.
Lena had seen the bait and snapped at the hook. She had bought it. All of the above.
And then there was the almost bought, but smelled bad …
Justin Tremell’s heartfelt story about his friendship for the victim that turned into something else. Dean Tremell’s bullshit act as the concerned father. And what about the fifty thousand that wound up in the victim’s bank account?
The deception had been so complete, so thorough, so brilliant. A command performance by every participant on every front.
It worked, of course, because somehow Dean Tremell had uncovered Jennifer Bloom’s secret. At some point he found out about her stolen identity and would have understood that he was working with an empty canvas. After her murder, Tremell would have known that he could define Bloom any way he wanted and make the crime look the way it did.
She could see Tremell standing in his boardroom sipping bourbon from a crystal glass. She could see him working out the logic for his demented plan. Deciding what it should look like and who would take the fall. Jennifer McBride would no longer be a mother who had lost her son. Once the transformation was complete, all anyone would ever see was a greedy whore. A whore blackmailing one of her wealthy clients—or so the bullshit went.
The scope of the crime took Lena’s breath away. The brutality. The audacity. The sickness.
She flipped open her cell, found Denny Ramira’s number and hit ENTER. She thought she finally knew what the reporter’s book was about and why he had been so reluctant to talk about it. And she thought that she knew who his contact was. The one who wanted to remain anonymous. It had been sitting out there all along. The way the pieces fit. It had been hidden behind a veil of money and power and absolute barbarism. Hidden in a stolen identity. She saw it now.
Ramira wasn’t picking up his cell. Paging through recent calls, she found his house number from earlier in the day and clicked it. When she hit his message service, she began to get a bad feeling and pulled over to the side of the road. Her address book was in her briefcase. Lena punched in Ramira’s number at The Times. After nine rings, a woman finally answered but sounded rushed.
“I’m trying to reach Denny,” Lena said.
“I’m sorry, but he’s not in. Could you try back later? We’re busy.”
“It’s important,” she said. “I’ve tried the house and his cell. Where is he?”
“We were wondering the same thing. Denny didn’t come in today.”
Lena felt her heart sink. “Does he still live in Silver Lake?”
“As far as I know. Why?”
Lena snapped her cell shut without answering the woman. Pulling back onto the road, she brought the car up to speed, blew through a red light, and jumped onto the 5 Freeway. It was 4:30 p.m. with just enough traffic to spike her blood pressure. She worked the road hard and fast and dipped onto the shoulder when she needed it. By the time she reached the reservoir and found Ramira’s house off Edgewater Terrace, the sun had set and every house on the block had its lights on.
Except for Ramira’s. Even worse, his car was in the drive.
She grabbed a pair of gloves, found a small flashlight in the glove compartment and walked up the drive. It was a California Craftsman with a long front porch and large windows. When she reached the steps and got picked up by the motion detectors, the sudden wash of bright light spooked her.
She could feel the tension, the heat in the cold air. And when she moved to the window and peered through the glass, she could feel the terror.
Something was swaying from the banister on the second floor. After a moment, she realized that it was Ramira’s Chihuahua, Freddie. She had met the dog eight months ago when she gave the reporter her account of the Romeo murder case. She hadn’t been to the house since, but remembered that his dog barked a lot and had plenty of attitude. It looked like someone had tied the leash to the banister and let the choke chain do the rest.
She backed away from the window, digging her cell phone out and hoping she wouldn’t remember what she had just seen. Rhodes picked up before she heard a ring.
“Where are you?” she asked.
He must have sensed something from her voice. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Give me the address.”
“Ramira’s house. You remember. We were here last spring.”
“See you in twenty minutes.”
“Don’t say anything, Stan. Everything’s different now.”
He paused a beat. “See you in twenty minutes,” he repeated.
She closed the phone, then tried the front door. When she found it locked, she moved around the house looking for a breach. There was no sign of a breakin. Every window and door appeared undisturbed. She glanced at her watch, then returned to the backyard. She had noticed a small window the first time around and seemed to remember that it opened to a powder room. Removing her jacket, she wrapped it around her arm and drew her gun. Then she punched out the glass with her .45, reached inside for the lock and raised the window.
She climbed in and froze, listening to the silence and getting a feel for the house. She could hear the fan from the heater running. The ice maker filling with water. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw Ramira’s dog hanging from the stairs and felt the chills hit the back of her neck again and coil around her spine. Below the dead dog she could see blood pooling on the floor.
She shook it off and stepped into the hall. Moving silently past the dog, she checked the living room but didn’t see anything. Same with the dining room. When she entered the kitchen, she noticed the long shadows on the floor and switched on her flashlight.
Ramira’s body was here, lying beside a fallen bag of groceries. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she ran toward hi
m. His eyes were pinned to the ceiling in a thousand-yard stare, his mouth, still open as well. As Lena struggled to hold the light steady, it seemed obvious from the wounds on his face that the reporter had been beaten to death with a blunt instrument. That the end had been painful and difficult. She panned the light across his body. When she spotted the meat thermometer buried in his chest, the chills got worse and she shuddered.
She tried to pull herself together. Tried to picture Jennifer Bloom’s mysterious journey and courage. Tried to draw on her reserves even though it felt like she didn’t have anything left.
No matter what the reason may have been for Ramira holding back on her, he had been a good man. It had been Denny Ramira who wrote the story about her brother’s murder, forcing the brass on the sixth floor at Parker Center to walk a straight line and tell the truth. It had been Ramira who stepped forward when she needed him. As the memories rose to the surface, she wondered why he hadn’t called 911 this morning. She hoped that he hadn’t been waiting for her. Counting on her.
She knelt down beside him, pushing her thoughts away. She could take it, she repeated to herself. She could handle this.
She looked back at the meat thermometer that had penetrated Ramira’s heart, noted the lack of blood, and realized that it had been an afterthought. He was dead before the stabbing, so she ignored it and pressed forward.
Lena understood from her work with Art Madina that there was no way to tell the time of death by studying the core temperature of a dead body. That probing the liver with an instant read thermometer much like the one in Ramira’s heart looked good on TV, but was essentially ridiculous. There were too many variables. How much clothing was Ramira wearing? How much body fat? What was the temperature of the room? Or, Ramira’s body temperature when he was beaten to death? Was he feeling well or was he ill with a temperature of more than 100 degrees?
She knew that she had talked to Ramira early this morning, so the murder went down sometime within the last eight hours. Digging the receipt out of the grocery bag, she tilted it into the light and found the date/time stamp. Ramira had checked out his groceries three and a half hours ago at one-thirty-seven this afternoon. Although the market was only five minutes away, that didn’t mean that he had come straight home.
She moved back to the body. Ramira’s left fist was clenched in a death grip. She noted the defensive wounds on his knuckles, the cuts and scratches, then tried to pry his fingers open but couldn’t. She knew full well that this was a chemical reaction and not a result of rigor mortis. That when rigor mortis finally came and went, his hand would relax. Still, she needed a better sense of timing.
She smoothed her gloved hands over his wrists and arms. They were still loose and free. Moving up his body to his shoulders and neck, she could feel the tightness beginning to set in. When she tried working his jaw, the muscles were frozen in place.
She took a deep breath and exhaled as she thought it through. Ramira spent most of his time sitting in front of a computer, not working out at the gym. Rigor mortis was just beginning to set in. Because of his physical condition, the murder had to have occurred sometime within the past hour or two. It was close. Real close.
The fan to the heater shut down. As the sound dissipated, the house began to take on that special kind of silence that only seemed to come when a dead body was around.
Lena picked up the flashlight and exited the kitchen. Moving down the back hall, she passed a spare bedroom and stopped in the doorway to Ramira’s study. She shined her light into the darkness. The room had been trashed. Every drawer in his desk had been dumped on the floor. The closet was open, the shelves tossed.
She moved to the desk, sidestepping the debris. When she switched on the lamp, she noticed a file on the chair. Inside she found transcripts that Ramira had made from interviews he had recorded for his book. But as she skimmed through them, she began to sense that something was wrong. This file shouldn’t have been here. The interviews were with the key players in the case. She saw Senator Alan West’s name. Jennifer Bloom was here as well, identified as Jennifer McBride. When Lena found Joseph Fontaine’s interview, she realized that her hunch had been correct. The Beverly Hills doctor was an expert in treating asthmatic children and had served as Ramira’s primary contact. It had been Fontaine who managed the clinical trials for Dean Tremell and Anders Dahl Pharmaceuticals. At the time the drug’s name hadn’t been tested by focus groups and was simply known as Formula D.
Lena stopped reading and began listening to the house again. Weighing the silence.
The file didn’t belong here because it was the motive for Denny Ramira’s murder. She kept her body still and let her eyes wander off the desk, then drift to the right where a large photograph hung on the wall. It didn’t take very long to spot the flaw in the reflection. The nuance in the silence that went with the file she held in her hand.
Ken Klinger was hiding behind the closet door. And he was armed.
Lena took the shock, but dug down deep and didn’t flinch or move. She could see him staring at her, the glass over the photograph as clear as any mirror. His forehead was bandaged and it looked like he had a black eye. But even worse, he was cornered and appeared extremely nervous. Lena had interrupted his search, yet she sensed that he wanted to remain hidden. That he had been watching her ever since the porch lights snapped on. That he may have even overheard her on the phone and understood that Rhodes was on his way.
When she saw him lower the gun to his side, she walked out with the file and stepped into the bathroom. Locking the door, she switched on the lights and dropped the toilet seat down as if she intended to use it. Then she slipped through the open window, bolted around the house, and shuddered as she spotted Rhodes pulling down the street.
“What happened?” he said, rolling the window down. “What is it?”
Lena jumped in and opened her cell. “Ramira’s dead. We need to drive out to Fontaine’s place.”
“I tried to reach him today. He didn’t show up at work. And Greta Deitrich’s missing. No one’s heard from her in two days.”
She gave him a troubled look, then worked the keypad on her phone. “We need to drive out anyway, but let’s just sit here for a while. Turn off your lights.”
“What are you doing? Who are you calling?”
“I’m blocking my caller ID, and calling nine-one-one.”
Lena brought the phone to her ear, keeping her eyes on Ramira’s house.
“What the hell is going on, Lena?”
She shook her head as the 911 operator picked up. “Shots fired,” she said into the phone. “There’s a dead body on the kitchen floor. Denny Ramira, the reporter from The Times. He’s been murdered in his home.”
The operator asked for her name. Lena gave the woman Ramira’s address instead, then repeated it and ended the call.
“If Ramira’s been murdered,” Rhodes said, “then why go through nine-one-one. Why not just call it in?”
“We can’t call it in. Everything’s different now. Keep your eyes on the house.”
“You mean the guy’s still in there?”
“We can talk on the way out to Fontaine’s. Just keep watching the house.”
She could hear the sirens just beginning to bleed through the night. As she sat back and waited, she tried to imagine what Klinger was doing right now. He wanted the file she had taken, but his need to remained hidden seemed to outweigh that. She wondered if he had second thoughts. Wondered if he was waiting for her outside the bathroom in the hall with Ramira’s dead dog, Freddie. Wondered if he could hear the sirens approaching.
They were getting louder. They couldn’t have been more than half a mile away now. And the answers came quick.
Rhodes pointed at the house. A shadow was leaping off the front porch into the yard and breaking through the bushes. As the figure sprinted down the sidewalk on the other side of street, the headlights from an approaching car washed over his face. Rhodes glanced at Lena, who turned and watche
d Klinger vanish into the darkness. The chief’s adjutant had made it. He didn’t get the file, but he was still hidden. Still free.
40
The drive out to Fontaine’s place on South Mapleton Drive went quickly. By the time they reached the front gate, Lena had managed to give Rhodes a detailed picture of where they stood and what they were probably about to face.
Like Ramira’s house, Fontaine’s mansion was the only one on the block with its lights out.
“I’m going over the wall,” he said. “When the gate opens, bring the car through.”
He took her flashlight, then hoisted himself up and over the other side. After a few minutes the gate opened, and Lena pulled the Crown Vic onto the property. Then they followed the drive up the hill to the back of the house.
Fontaine’s Mercedes was parked in front of the garage. She traded looks with Rhodes and caught the grim expression on his face. The only light she could see was coming from the hot tub on the terrace at the far end of the house. The only sound she heard came from the water bubbling and fizzing in the night.
Lena gazed at the mansion silhouetted against the clouds in the sky. The moon was trying to break through, but couldn’t. The air was raw and ice-cold. As they approached the back door, Rhodes switched the flashlight back on, shined the beam through the glass, and found the alarm on the inside wall.
“It’s not armed,” he said.
“Did you think it would be?”
He tried the doorknob. When it turned, he shook his head at her and gave the door a push. They were inside the house now. And Lena picked up on the silence again. The kind that went with a corpse. Rhodes hit the light switch on the wall.
“I guess it was just hope,” he said. “I thought he hired bodyguards.”
“Let’s go find him.”
It only took ten minutes to clear the first floor and work their way upstairs. Once they reached the landing, all they needed to do was follow the harsh odor down the hall into the study.
Lena switched on the desk lamp. From the condition of the body, it was obvious that Fontaine had been dead for at least twenty-four hours. He was slumped over the side of the chair and appeared to be melting into the arm. A .38 revolver lay on the floor to his right. On the desk she spotted two auto-injectors and read the labels.
