He thought about running away but knew he’d waited too long when Vaughn come over and sat down on the bench next to him. The detective handed him a bag with his watch cap inside and said he wanted to talk about a girl named Anya Nosova.
The pretty lady detective had mentioned that name the day he got arrested. Rags knew right away she was talking about the dead girl he’d seen in the alley. Killing her was evil. The man should have to pay for what he did. When Vaughn told him there was a way he could help, Rags didn’t even have to think about it. He was onboard.
Later, with a business card in his hand and a new story in his brain, Rags was back on the streets of Venice crouched under the eaves of a dental office just east of the roundabout, sheltered from a needling rain. It had been rough the past few days, but his mind was clear now. He felt better, even though the medications the doctors gave him had slowed his reflexes and dulled his thinking. That worried him because he needed to concentrate if his mission were to succeed. Warmed by a blanket he’d borrowed from the shelter, he pulled that business card from his pocket and squinted as he entered the telephone number on the keypad of his cell phone. He hoped the conversation was brief because it hurt to bend his scarred arms for too long.
After three rings, a man answered. Rags’s future depended on this call, so he struggled to remember the words the detective had helped him rehearse.
“I was in the alley when you dumped that girl’s body in the sewer,” he said. “I saw everything.”
For a moment all Rags heard was the clang of raindrops on the metal drainpipe above his head.
“Where are you?” The voice sounded as jagged as shards of glass.
“In Venice but I’ve been thinking about moving to Mexico. Just need a little traveling money.”
“How much?”
Rags felt relieved that the man had given in so easily. He didn’t like conflict, preferring quiet negotiations. Only he couldn’t remember the amount the detective told him to ask for, so he just blurted out a number. “Twenty grand should do it. Just enough to start over.”
As soon as he said the amount, he knew the number was wrong. He regretted his error. The girl’s life was worth more than that.
“Fine.”
Rags wondered how the man could get that much cash together so soon. He hoped the offer wasn’t a con. Maybe the man didn’t intend to pay or maybe the man even planned to kill him. Rags didn’t want to die, but he wasn’t afraid of the Grim Reaper, either. He had faced greater challenges in his life. Still, if he had to cross over, he hoped they’d cremate him. He hated the cold and couldn’t bear the thought of being buried in the bitter ground.
He closed his eyes to think about the dangers of his mission. It wasn’t too late to hang up. He could use the money in his backpack for bus fare to San Diego and still have a little left over to slip across the border into Mexico. Live on the beach. He knew enough habla español to get by. He imagined filling his belly with fish tacos as a Mariachi band coaxed love songs from their violins and guitarróns. Maybe he’d even meet a good woman who would heal his wounds and make him whole again.
Rags knew that dream would evaporate the moment he opened his eyes. Mexico couldn’t happen until he executed the plan. There was one big thing in his favor. This time the powerful forces were aligned with him, not against him. They wouldn’t allow him to fail.
“Meet me where you dumped the body,” Rags said. “I’ll be in the alley for twenty minutes, no more. If you don’t show, I’ll tell the cops what I saw.”
Rags’s heartbeat hammered his chest. He hoped his words had sounded tough and convincing, but he couldn’t be sure because of the medications.
“It’ll take me at least thirty minutes to get there.”
Rags almost said “no way,” but he finally agreed because he prided himself on his willingness to compromise, especially over a measly ten minutes.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what denomination of bills I want?”
“Yeah, sure … lay it on me.”
Rags waited as a car sped past the dental office, its tires kicking up rooster tails from the wet pavement. “A thousand in twenties, the rest in hundreds. I’m on foot and you’d be surprised what a heavy burden money can be.”
After Rags ended the call, he thought about all the things that could go wrong. Maybe the man would come with a gun. Too noisy, he thought. A knife then, or a baseball bat. He imagined the SUV rolling to a stop in the alley. The driver would pull the bat from the front seat and walk toward him, widening his stance, bending his knees, and slowly raising the bat above his head.
Rags guessed the first strike to his head would make a hollow sound like somebody dropping a watermelon in a grocery store aisle. The man would swing the bat again and again. Three strikes. Out.
He shook his head to purge those bad thoughts. He shuffled toward the beach, drawing the blanket around his body to quell the chill. He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.
46
Early Monday morning, Davie’s cell phone rang. It was Jason Vaughn.
“Please tell me Rogers is in custody,” she said.
“Not yet.”
Davie’s shoulders tensed. “What’s happening?”
“I showed Rags a six-pack yesterday, just like you said. He pointed to Rogers’s DMV photo and said he saw him dump the body of a young woman down a manhole in Venice. He couldn’t identify Anya as the victim, but he was sure about Rogers. He remembered his face and described what he was wearing. He’s an iffy witness, but his statement was enough for the judge to sign a warrant to impound Rogers’s SUV.”
“Where was it?”
“Parked in the Edison garage, but Rogers must have seen us show up, because he split before we could talk to him. The bell captain saw him get into a cab shortly after we got there. A couple of blue suits followed me to Rogers’s place, but his wife told us she didn’t know where he was.”
“Find anything in his vehicle?”
“The techs found traces of blood. Somebody tried to clean it up, but they didn’t do a very good job. It’s too soon to know for sure, but I’m guessing it’s Anya’s. They also found some red plastic beads. Not sure what that means. Maybe nothing.”
“They’re from Anya’s purse. It’s booked in the Property room. Rogers picked it up from the Volga Bakery on Monday. He must have broken one of the threads before putting it in Satine’s car. Did any of the other forensic evidence come back?”
“No hits on that heart box from the Marina del Rey apartment, but they got a sample from the hairs on the brush you collected. They also got Rogers’s saliva from the plastic cup. The lab did a rush job on the DNA. I just got the results. You were right. Rogers is the father of Anya’s baby. That could explain his motive for killing her.”
“What about Rags Foster?”
“One of the undercover vice guys posed as Rags, just like we planned. He sat in the alley for almost two hours. Rogers didn’t show. The only thing our guy got was hypothermia. And by the way, Rags’s public defender wasn’t happy that we used him as a decoy. I told her he only made a phone call but she didn’t like it.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s safe. He wouldn’t go back to the shelter, so we checked him into a motel and told him to stay put. A couple of our guys are stationed outside. If he tries to leave, they’ll do their best to talk him out of it.”
“So Rogers was a no-show. Any idea where he is?”
“We can’t find him, but his wife’s Toyota is missing. We’ve notified local airports, Amtrak, and border agents for both Mexico and Canada. Right now I’m running down leads from the tip line.”
“Anything promising?”
“A couple of calls are worth looking into. A guy claims he saw Rogers sailing a boat out of Marina del Rey and a clerk at a sporting goods store says a man matching Rogers’s de
scription bought a couple hundred dollars worth of survival gear.”
“He’s outdoorsy, likes to hike. He may be headed to the mountains.”
“I’ve got it covered, Davie.”
“I know you do.”
She should have felt better about being right but instead she was left with a sense of loss that somebody else had taken over her investigation.
“What can I do to help?” she said.
“Nothing if you ever want to work as a cop again. Trust me on this, partner.”
Vaughn promised to keep her updated before ending the call. She glanced out the window toward Alex Camden’s house. The place was dead quiet. He had left on a buying trip to Asia and wouldn’t be home for two weeks. Even the dogs were gone, staying in Thousand Oaks with Camden’s aunt.
The width of the guesthouse was less than twenty-five feet. She paced the distance several times, wondering where Rogers was and what his next move might be. Would he leave town or make a last stand somewhere? She didn’t think he’d turn himself in, and she didn’t believe he sailed off into the sunset. A sailboat was too slow and too easy to track. The sporting goods tip sounded more promising. There were dozens of vacation cottages in the mountains where he could hide, at least until the owners showed up.
Her nerves were frayed. She decided to go for a swim to work off the tension. In her bedroom, she opened the drawer where she kept her swimming suit. Her hand reached in to pick it up and then stopped. She had never felt afraid living here alone—until now. Despite the tony neighborhood and the security gate, she felt vulnerable. It could take days or longer before they found Cal Rogers. She couldn’t hide inside the house forever with a gun by her side—a gun she was no longer permitted to carry, no less—but for now she decided to stay inside.
If Rogers hadn’t kept his appointment with Rags it was likely because he sensed a set up. He’d worked in law enforcement and once you developed a cop’s paranoia, it wasn’t easy to shake it off. Sometimes it was the only thing that kept you alive.
Rogers must have wondered how a homeless junkie got his telephone number. If he had bothered to ask, she hoped Rags remembered the story she and Vaughn had concocted—that he’d memorized Rogers’s license plate number and later gave someone at the shelter fifteen bucks to buy the registered owner’s address and phone number from the Internet. Davie had hoped Rogers would believe that story, but apparently he hadn’t.
It seemed unlikely that Rogers would come after her, but just to be cautious, she made sure the doors and windows were all locked. Then she turned the TV to a news channel and waited.
After thirty minutes watching TV coverage about everything but the search for Cal Rogers, Davie needed a break. It was almost one o’clock and she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d eaten. Food didn’t sound appealing but her body needed fuel in order to function. She was on her way to the kitchen to make a sandwich when her cell phone rang. She muted the sound on the TV and answered the call.
“Davie.” It was her grandmother. She sounded breathless.
She felt a surge of guilt. With everything that had happened, she couldn’t remember the last time they’d spoken.
“Sorry I haven’t called, Grammy. Too many things going—”
“Help!”
She looked at the number on the phone’s screen. Blocked. A feeling of unease washed over her. “Grammy, what’s wrong? Did you fall? Whose phone are you using?”
“A man came to my apartment. He put a rag over my mouth and dragged me out the back door.”
Davie’s mind was unspooling. She struggled to rein in her thoughts. “Where are you, Grammy?”
“In a car. On a freeway, I think. We’re going fast. I punched him, Davie, but I couldn’t stop him.”
Davie’s pulse raced as she sprinted into the bedroom in search of her gun. “Who’s with you? Let me talk to him. Okay?”
A moment later, she heard Cal Rogers’s voice. “I know you told me you didn’t like surprises, but I couldn’t resist. You didn’t tell me your grandmother is as beautiful as she is smart. I’m so glad to finally meet her. We’ll all be together soon, just the three of us. That should be fun.”
She opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out the Smith & Wesson, checking the chamber to make sure a cartridge was in place. Her first impulse was to say, If you harm her in any way, I will make you pay, but from what little training she’d had in hostage negotiating, she knew to avoid threats that might escalate the situation.
Her tone remained calm but her body was a taut wire. “All I want is for everybody to stay safe, Cal.”
“Me, too, Davie. By the way, if you’re considering a career change, my wife thinks you’d make a great real estate agent.”
She used her shoulder to hold the phone to her ear while she strapped on her gun belt. “How did you know it was me?”
He chuckled. “Norah tells me everything and she has a great memory for details. She described everything about you from your red hair down to those red sneakers. We’d just been together, so I knew right away it was you. You screwed up my plans big-time, so I’m counting on you to help me through this rough spot.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I need to take a trip abroad, but the economy sucks. Got any spare change? A lot of it.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Where do you want to meet?”
“Do you have a pen?”
He rattled off an address in Chula Vista, a town near San Diego close to the Mexican border. Crossing into Mexico was a good bet for Rogers. Extradition was iffy, especially if the DA’s office decided to seek the death penalty for Anya Nosova’s murder.
“Just the three of us, Davie. Got that? I wouldn’t want anything to spoil the day.”
“Let me talk to my grandmother.”
His tone was mocking. “What? I can’t hear you. Davie, are you there? I think I’m losing the connection.”
The phone went dead.
47
Davie pressed redial but her call wouldn’t connect to the blocked number. She didn’t know what Rogers expected of her. She couldn’t access any significant amount of cash on such short notice. All she had was a couple thousand dollars of emergency earthquake money hidden in a bag of green peas in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. That would have to do. She pulled out the bag and set it on the counter.
She had been suspended from the department and was no longer authorized to carry a weapon, but she’d be crazy to go after Rogers unarmed. Back when she’d been a probationer, her training officer had told her it was better to be judged by twelve than carried by six. That still seemed like sound advice. She threw on her Kevlar vest and slid her Smith & Wesson into her belt holster. At the last minute, she strapped a .38 snub-nose revolver to a holster on her leg. It wasn’t good for distances, but it might come in handy for close encounters.
Once in her car, she entered the Chula Vista address into her cell phone’s navigation app. As she headed toward the Sunset entrance to the 405, she reached Jason Vaughn.
“I’ve located Rogers,” she said. “He’s holding my grandmother hostage. They’re on their way to the Mexican border.
“What the hell? How do you know?”
“He called. He wants money. I’m driving to meet him.”
“What?! No! Where are you?”
“On the freeway, headed south.”
“Go home. Let us handle this.”
She maneuvered the car into the fast lane. “If I don’t show up at the meeting place, he’ll kill her.”
“Stall him. Tell him you got hung up in traffic. Just give me time to call Chula Vista PD. See if they want us to send a SWAT team and a hostage negotiator.”
“Call anybody you want, but I’m going to Chula Vista.”
He blew out a blast of air. “Okay, but keep in tou
ch. I’ll call you with the plan.”
She grabbed the 12-volt phone charger from the glove compartment, attached her phone, and plugged the charger into the cigarette lighter. She didn’t know how long Rogers had been on the road, but it would take her at least two hours to get from Bel Air to Chula Vista. She inched the Camaro’s speedometer to eighty, hoping that number would hold all the way to her destination. If she had to slow down, she would. If the Highway Patrol pulled her over for speeding, it would only waste time while she explained the situation.
As she drove south, she considered the possibility that Rogers might have access to a powerboat. A vessel in open water, even a fast one, was easy to track, so she placed that option at the bottom of the list. Chula Vista was close to the border. A better plan for Rogers would be to force Davie to drive into Mexico with her grandmother riding shotgun and Rogers in the trunk of the car. She and Grammy would look like tourists on a winter vacay. It was unlikely border agents would stop them or search their car.
If that was the plan, she doubted Rogers would cross at San Ysidro. Too many eyes watching, too many potential delays. He might choose a smaller border town like Tecate. Then she realized the option was unworkable. She and Grammy could get tourist cards at the border, but they’d need passports to complete the transaction.
As Davie passed the exit for Pacific station, she realized Rogers must have considered the possibility she would notify authorities he was holding her grandmother and that Davie would come to the meeting place armed. She wondered if he’d even be there when she arrived. Maybe he’d call again with another address or leave a message somewhere … or maybe he had no intention of returning Grammy alive.
Her hands felt numb from gripping the steering wheel. She shook each one until feeling returned. If Rogers harmed her grandmother, all bets were off. Neither her career nor her personal safety mattered. She would take him down any way she could.
Pacific Homicide Page 24
