Killer

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Of course.”

  “I mean it.”

  “So do I, Ree. You’re her only mother.”

  She studied me. “You,” she said. As if seeing me for the first time. “You hold me.”

  Mother sank into my embrace but daughter cried harder, letting loose tears and gasps and sprays of mucus that glazed my sleeve.

  Ree’s comforting chant lowered to a mechanical drone. “ ’Sokay, baby dolly, ’sokay …”

  I focused on Milo’s phone conversation, 911 request for Fire Rescue, specifying bolt cutters, a “freed hostage situation.” Then the lieutenant at Van Nuys station.

  Rambla never stopped crying.

  When the sirens sounded, Ree Sykes said, “That’s beautiful.”

  With both victims hustled away in an ambulance and an army of techs ready to do their thing, the entire property became a crime scene.

  Milo and I returned to the unmarked. Leaning against the van and kicking the tire the way he had with the garage wall, he followed up with Moe Reed.

  Reed said, “Didn’t call you, El Tee, because she’s not coming back there right now, drove into Burbank, Marie Callender’s, she’s having lunch. That gave me a chance to look into her car. She’s a slob, but no baby stuff and nothing overtly weird.”

  “She dining alone?”

  “So far. I’m out in the parking lot, in position to see if that changes.”

  “Whenever you’re ready, take her down, Moses.”

  “Re-ally,” said Reed. “So you got the evidence.”

  “Got everything.” Milo filled in the details.

  “Whoa. And I missed the party. Okay, so she’s my loose end, I’ll tie her up.”

  “Any indication she’s packing?”

  “Not unless she’s got something small in her purse.”

  “One of our vics was killed with a .25.”

  “I’ll remember that, El Tee. Congratulations.”

  “For what?”

  “Live victims.”

  Next call: SWAT lieutenant Byron Bird, using a secure tactical band. Bird answered with a growling, “Yeah?”

  Milo said, “I could use your help.”

  “And here I was thinking you were offering me tickets to the game,” said Bird. “Let me give you some deep background, friend: Been up since three a.m., shitload of time wasted on a false-alarm dope raid. So don’t even talk to me about work, Milo. Going to the gym.”

  “Got something more therapeutic than bench-pressing, Byron.”

  “Like what?”

  Milo told him the situation. Bird said, “Two tan-shirts, Lordy Lord. Where exactly at Mosk?”

  “Family and probate.”

  “Familiar with both those purgatories. Two divorces and my mother’s will. Okay, I’m déjà-vu-ing the layout in my head, those halls full of civilians … my thought is we need to be subtle. That’s French for just enough foreplay.”

  The takedown team would be sixteen of Bird’s physically strongest officers in plainclothes.

  “Eight for him, eight for her,” said Bird. “Last thing I need is my new girlfriend getting on me for the sexist thing.”

  Laughing his way through the planning but not pleased at substituting muscle for staggering firepower. But getting any sort of a weapon into the court building without triggering a commotion would be tough, let alone showing up with the heavy artillery the swatters preferred.

  The final arrangement: each of the sixteen officers would be limited to a single 9mm handgun concealed by a blousy shirt and relegated to last resort.

  The primary weapon would be human bulk: blitz-swarming the Nebes after they left their respective courtrooms. As long as the bailiffs ventured far enough from onlookers to minimize collateral damage.

  If the hallways were packed, the arrest would be postponed for a safer time and place.

  “Just what I need,” said Bird. “Another pud-yank marathon.”

  “Be optimistic, Byron.”

  “Why?”

  “I got live victims.”

  “Good for you—but you also got those two dead ones so don’t be going all positive-thinking on me.”

  Hank Nebe, exiting Nancy Maestro’s chambers an hour after the SWAT team was in place, went down easy.

  “Shoulda seen the look on his face,” said Bird, radioing in the all-clear. “Like a geek who crapped his pants on a first date. Then he gets all smirky, don’t even try to talk to me, I want a lawyer. Not my problem, he’s on his way to Central Booking. That should get interesting, no? Man-in-tan processed by his compadres. All those po-lice-loving gangbangers.”

  Milo said, “I think that’s called irony.”

  “It’s called ef-you justice, Milo. You have any indication he did something to that baby?”

  “Not so far.”

  “ ’Cause if I knew he did something like that, I might’ve aimed a well-placed kick,” said Bird. “Either way he’s evil. Probably need to call in a shrink for your vics.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Byron.”

  “Okay, back to you when we nab Missus Evil.”

  Ten minutes later, Bird was back on the line: “Got a problem, Milo. Her court got recessed two hours ago, some kind of stomach bug hitting the judge.”

  “She show up?”

  “We’re still checking.”

  “Her car’s not in staff parking?”

  “No sign of it yet. We’re covering every inch of the structure, including the visitors sections. Something happens, I’ll let you know.”

  Milo hung up and rubbed his eyes. Settling behind the wheel of the unmarked, he pushed the seat back and stretched. I got in the passenger side.

  I watched him fidget.

  “What’s on your mind, Big Guy?”

  “What Byron said, any indication the baby was abused?” His laugh was bitter. “Other than being locked up in a garage with her mother shackled to the wall?”

  He phoned Reed again.

  “No change, El Tee.”

  “Yes, there is, Moses. Look out for the aunt. Her court recessed and she left the house in civvies, so it’s possible she never made it to the court building. She’s a deputy, is likely to be packing.”

  Reed said, “Appreciate the warning, El Tee.”

  Milo clicked off. “No, he doesn’t, but that’s one of the things I like about the kid.”

  “Respectful.”

  “I prefer deferential. Bet he always ate his vegetables.” He yawned, placed the cell phone on the dash, rolled the back of his head along the seat. Tugging his tie loose, he closed his eyes. “Hope to hell this doesn’t drag on.”

  Just as he began to snore, I said, “Doesn’t look as if it will.”

  CHAPTER

  41

  The Toyota was a dark gray blur at the far end of the block.

  Rolling toward us at moderate speed. Coming to an abrupt stop well short of the hubbub fronting the beige house.

  Swinging a quick three-pointer, it sped off.

  Yanking the seat forward, Milo started his engine, jammed his foot on the accelerator.

  No match between the Toyota’s four cylinders and the unmarked’s police-enhanced V8. Within seconds we were riding the compact’s rear bumper.

  The driver—female, head topped by the curly do I’d seen on Willa Nebe—hooked a squealing right turn and raced along a side street lined with bungalows.

  Milo stayed on her tail, NASCAR comes to Van Nuys. An errant pedestrian would be doomed but walking in L.A. is generally relegated to gym machines and this time that worked out fine for the citizenry.

  L.A.’s also delinquent about maintenance unless some crony of the mayor or a council member has a sweetheart contract, so the asphalt was scarred by potholes and the Toyota hit a big one and bounced straight up and swerved left and rocked before settling. For a moment I thought that would end the chase.

  The Toyota straightened, surged forward making an ugly sound. Sped faster.

  Smooth sailing for three blocks before a cu
l-de-sac changed things.

  The Toyota took the only option: quick left turn, barely short of the dead end, onto another side street.

  Milo re-glued the unmarked to the Toyota for another four blocks of straightaway.

  This time people were crossing: two women pushing strollers.

  Bracing himself, he slowed. The Toyota didn’t bother to and the women jumped back, wide-eyed and openmouthed, avoiding obliteration by inches.

  Milo looked everywhere, then forward, gunned his engine, narrowed, finally closed the gap. His gun remained holstered. In the movies, cops and bad guys race at Indie speed while shooting at each other. In real life it’s all cops can do not to die behind the wheel.

  The Toyota’s bearings looked shaky but it kept going. Off in the distance, a stream of cross-traffic filled the horizon.

  Van Nuys Boulevard. Once the pursuit moved to the busy thoroughfare, the risk factor would change in terrible ways.

  If the Toyota made it to the freeway, we’d be on every local station’s live cam and anything could happen.

  The little gray car raced for escape. One block shy of its goal, an obstacle rolled into view.

  Massive, unpleasantly green steel hulk lumbering from the right on six wheels.

  City garbage van. But no cans out at the curb so this wasn’t pickup day.

  Yet there it was edging along at fifteen per.

  I made out a sign on the truck bed’s ridged flanks: tree clearance program, credit to the district’s councilman.

  No sound of sawing, no evidence of arboreal work, no foliage sprouting in the bed.

  Let’s hear it for sweetheart contracts.

  The driver, oblivious, was doing something that caused him to look down.

  Texting.

  The Toyota hit the rear of the truck head-on, full speed. The sound was surprisingly restrained. Dull and squishy, heavy-on-the-plastic Japanese engineering surrendered to heavy metal.

  By the time we got out of the unmarked, the truck’s driver, a paunchy guy with a drooping white mustache, his phone still in his hand, was on the pavement staring at the upended accordion that had once been a vehicle.

  Milo checked the Toyota’s front seat but there was no need to. The car had compressed to half its normal length, the entire front section now shared space with the rear.

  What remained of Willa Nebe was curly gray hair flecked with pink pudding above a sodden lump of something that might’ve been chuck steak had it been able to hold itself together.

  “I couldn’t stop,” said the driver, to no one in particular.

  Milo glanced at me. “You wanna do therapy, be my guest.”

  CHAPTER

  42

  Processing the Toyota would take a long time, beginning at the crash site and ending at the motor lab. But inspecting the car’s trunk was instant gratification: the hatch had shot open on impact.

  Inside were three weapons: Housed in canvas cases were a semiautomatic 9mm Sheriff’s Department duty-authorized Heckler & Koch P2000 subsequently tied to the shell casings left at the Bernard Chamberlain shooting scene, and a similarly sanctioned 12-gauge Remington 870 pump shotgun.

  Wrapped in a white tea towel embroidered with pink roses, and wedged into a blood-pooled corner of the crash-distorted compartment, was a smaller handgun with a short nose that made it appear more grip than barrel.

  Taurus PT25, later I.D.’d as the firearm used to shoot William Melandrano in the head.

  No current registration for the little gun but its serial number was traceable: wrested from a mentally unstable man attempting to smuggle the pistol and a hunting knife into the Mosk Courthouse, presumably to inflict damage upon the ex-wife who kept dragging him back to family court for more child support.

  Following confiscation, the gun had been placed on a shelf in a basement storage room, part of a cache destined to be destroyed in an official county meltdown. Among the bailiffs given access to that room was Hank Nebe, who’d earned a month’s worth of taxpayer-funded overtime by supplementing his courtroom chores with yawn-inducing sentry duty.

  On advice of counsel Nebe had nothing to say about that, or anything else. Fifty-six days into his incarceration at County Jail he was beaten severely and raped by fellow prisoner(s) unknown. That, despite being sequestered in a high-power, protective security cell.

  Kiara Fallows remained equally mute. So far, her stay in the women’s wing at the jail’s Twin Towers had been uneventful, but for a report that she was “making friends quickly.”

  Ree Sykes had plenty to say.

  CHAPTER

  43

  Statement of Cherie Sykes (victim)

  re: Defendants H. W. Nebe and D. K. Fallows

  Penal Codes

  182 (Conspiracy);

  187 (Murder);

  664/187 (Attempted Murder);

  206 (Torture);

  207 (Kidnapping);

  236 (False Imprisonment);

  273a (Abusing or Endangering Health of Child)

  Location: Undisclosed

  Present: Deputy D.A. John Nguyen

  LAPD Lieutenant Milo B. Sturgis

  Dr. Alexander Delaware (victim’s psychologist)

  Court Reporter Deborah Marks

  Mr. Nguyen: So why don’t you just tell us everything in your own words. Take your time.

  Ms. Sykes: It all happened quickly. I knew him—the husband bailiff, Nebe—from the court and he always seemed kind of mean. But I never thought he’d—anyway, him I knew, her I didn’t. The wife. So when she showed up at my apartment at night wearing a bailiff uniform and saying I needed to sign court papers I had no reason not to believe her. Even though it was late, I figured they worked all kinds of shifts, I mean what did I know, she seemed nice, she had a uniform. And a gun …

  Anyway … I went looking for my glasses, I’m always misplacing them. So I could see what I was signing. Because after all that time in court, listening to lawyers I learned one thing: You have to dot your i’s and cross your t’s. I’d left them in the bathroom. For putting on my makeup. So when I was looking for them in there, she waited out front and she seemed nice and friendly and Rambla seemed to like her and while I was looking for my glasses she asked if she could pick Rambla up and I said sure and then when I finally found my glasses in the bedroom and came back out, all of a sudden there’s two of them. Her and the younger woman and now it was the younger woman who was holding Rambla and Rambla didn’t like her, she must’ve had a bad feeling about her, kids are like that, they can tell.

  (23 second pause for Ms. Sykes to compose herself)

  CS: Sorry. Okay. So the young one had Rambla and Rambla was struggling and then all of a sudden she puts her hand over Rambla’s mouth and on top of the shock about everything I got scared that she was pinching off Rambla’s nose so I yelled at her to let Rambla breathe which I know sounds kind of strange, I should’ve had a problem with her having Rambla in the first place but I was just thinking my baby needed to breathe.

  So she shows me Rambla’s nostrils are clear but she doesn’t let go of Rambla and I make a move to get Rambla and the older one—Willa—she’s shoving me back and pointing a gun at me and then before I know it she spins me around and handcuffs me and puts a gag in my mouth.

  (32 second pause, Ms. Sykes drinks water)

  CS: So … we all leave the apartment, this is like a nightmare, I’m thinking it can’t be happening. But it is, it’s crazy, it’s like a bad dream out of nowhere and I’m figuring my sister’s behind this, at that point I didn’t know, I mean I never knew—what had happened to my sister—until you guys told me after you … liberated me. Us. So at that point … anyway, we get outside I’m still figuring I can alert someone but it’s late, it’s dark, no one’s out there and they parked their car real close to my building so it doesn’t take long to get to it. They shove me in the trunk and I’m thinking you’ve got no car seat for Rambla, Rambla needs a car seat.

  (14 second pause)

  CS: Where w
as I—

  Dr. Delaware: A car seat.

  CS: The drive took, I don’t know … it seemed like forever … I worried the whole ride, then we got home—their home, not mine—I saw them take Rambla out of the car seat. So they brought it. Which was good, at that point I just wanted anything to be good. They had diapers, too. Mine. My baby stuff. So. Okay. I thought they were going to take her and kill me but at least they cared enough about my baby … then they put us in the garage. So they didn’t kill me. So at least we’re together. So what’s the point? They uncuff me and chain me up to the wall with this like animal trap thing but they let me hold Rambla the entire time they’re doing it and I can reach Rambla’s crib but if I put Rambla down and she decides to crawl far from me there’s nothing I can do.

  Mr. Nguyen: Did that ever happen?

  CS: No. Not once. Not one single time. Rambla stayed right next to me.

  (26 second pause)

  Dr. Delaware: You talk about them putting you in the garage. Is it still Willa Nebe and Kiara Fallows?

  CS: Oh. No. When we got there he was there also. The one I knew from the court. Those glasses of his, hiding his eyes. That really shocked me. Two bailiffs are doing something like this? But then I figured it out they were married. And crazy. Anyway. Rambla never left me. She never stopped wanting me. No matter what they said about me being a terrible mother. A terrible person.

  Dr. Delaware: They told you that.

  CS: All the time. Over and over. That was their reason. They knew what I was. From their work. Being in court, day after day. Hearing about miscreants and bums. That’s what they called it. Miscreants and bums and lowlifes who didn’t deserve to have kids. When so many people who deserved kids couldn’t.

  Dr. Delaware: Like them.

  CS: That’s what I assumed. Then she would come in and it got crazier.

  Mr. Nguyen: She, being …

  CS: The young one. Kiara. She was the scariest. I guess. I mean they were all scary, but her …

  Dr. Delaware: She was especially scary.