Void Moon (1999)

by Michael Connelly

  "Take it easy now," he said calmly. "I'm on your side."

  34

  SINCE getting the news at the dealership Cassie Black had felt as though she were underwater, in some kind of surrealistic otherworld that had no bearing on her life. Deep down she knew it was an instinctive defense mechanism. It allowed her to continue, to move and do what needed to be done.

  She now stood in the backyard of Leo's house staring at the dried blood streaking the jagged piece of glass standing in the bottom frame of the sliding door. Just seeing the glass confirmed what Karch had told her. She knew now that Leo was dead. If she went into the house she would find his body. And whatever way she found it would constitute an image she would never be able to remove from her memory.

  She looked down into the pool at the vacuum standing motionless at the bottom. But almost immediately her eyes were drawn back to the door with the jagged glass. She knew she had to go in. Finally, she nodded once to herself and walked up to the door. And immediately she could see his body on the floor of the office. An eighteen-wheeler going by on the freeway behind the property drowned out the awful sighing sound that came involuntarily from her throat. She stepped over the glass and into the house.

  Leo's body was sprawled face up to the side of the door. Blood seemed to be everywhere. Despite the horrible tableau the scene created, her eyes were drawn to what unmistakably appeared to be, if not a smile on his face, a look of satisfaction. Cassie crouched next to him and touched his cold cheek.

  "Oh, Leo," she said. "What did I do?"

  The tears started coming again. She tried to pinch them off by tightly closing her eyes and balling her fists.

  Finally, when she opened her eyes again, she tried to study the body and the surroundings as maybe a detective would. She wanted to know what had happened. The fact that Karch had come to her and demanded the money meant Leo had stood up. She looked at the bloody drag marks on the tile floor and put it together. Leo had done it. He had gone to the glass. He had done it for her.

  "Leo . . ."

  She closed her eyes again and leaned her head down to his silent chest.

  "I knew we should've run."

  She straightened back up with a new resolve. She would get away. She knew it was a selfish choice but she also knew that if she failed that Leo's noble death would be for nothing. That was Leo's hope in the end. His last prayer. That was what put the smile on his face. She would honor that.

  She stood up and looked around the office. It had been completely destroyed by Karch's search. But he had been looking for two-and-a-half million dollars, not for what she looked for now. She stepped over the body to the overturned desk and looked at the debris on the floor. Leo's astrology books and papers and notebooks were scattered about. The contents of the desk drawers had been dumped. Amidst the clutter she saw two envelopes on the floor, both addressed to Leo and with the same odd return address, just the numbers 773 . She stooped down and picked them up. Both were empty. One was postmarked two days before in Chicago and then she knew. Karch had found the passports. He had them.

  Cassie abruptly stood up and her head hit the red I-Ching coins that dangled from the ceiling and would have been directly over the upright desk. She looked up at them for a moment and then grabbed the desk chair and moved it over. She climbed up on the chair and unhooked the string of coins. She wanted something of Leo's to take with her. If not for luck, then just to remember him by.

  As she got down she knew there was no point in going through the rest of the house. Karch had the passports and there was nothing else inside that she had wanted. She walked over to Leo's body and once more looked down on him. She thought of the song she had listened to so many times on the way to Vegas. She hoped there had been an angel to whisper in his ear.

  "Good-bye, Leo," she said.

  She carefully stepped over the glass and through the broken slider out to the backyard. She walked to the pool's edge and looked down at the vacuum. Tracing its hose to a coupling in the wall, she walked around to the other side and then got down on her knees and reached into the water. She grabbed the hose and started pulling it up and out onto the pool's concrete skirt. It was heavy work and twice she almost toppled into the water. Eventually, the vacuum head and debris bag came to the surface and she wrestled it onto the concrete.

  Water turned the white concrete dark and soaked the knees of her black jeans. She didn't care. She struggled with the collar of the debris bag but then saw the zipper running alongside the bag. She quickly zipped the bag open and spread it. Inside the bag was another bag, a heavy-duty white plastic bag with its mouth tied in a knot. She carefully lifted it out of the vacuum bag and then worked her fingers into the knot. It was too tight and she didn't have the fingernails for the job. She reached into her back pocket for the Swiss Army knife and used it to cut the knot off the bag.

  Cassie looked inside. The bricks of hundred-dollar bills were there. Still wrapped in plastic and as dry as the day they were cut at the mint.

  She closed the bag and looked across the pool at the broken sliding door. From this angle she could see the tops of Leo's shoes pointing upward. She silently said her thanks to him. He had said to her when he told where the money would be kept that the best hiding place was one in plain sight. He had been right.

  Cassie looked down at the water. Her struggling with the vacuum had created a small current. Floating by her on the surface was a dead hummingbird, its tiny wings spread like an angel's.

  35

  KARCH slowly stood up when ordered to by the woman with the gun.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  He nodded, hoping it would be a gesture taken as a sign of his full cooperation and compliance.

  "My name is Jack Karch. I'm a private investigator. My license is in the inside right pocket of my jacket. May I get it out and show it to you?"

  "Maybe later. A PI? What do you want with Cassie Black? And take two steps backward and lean against the wall."

  She was slowly coming further into the room. He did as he was told and leaned his shoulders against the wall as he spoke. He saw her eyeing the Sig, which was still on the bed.

  "I'm on a case. A hot prowl in Vegas. A hotel room. A high roller was taken off for a lot of money. If you don't mind me asking, who are you?"

  The woman was at the bottom of the bed. Keeping her eyes and the aim of her Beretta on Karch, she bent forward and reached her free hand for the gun.

  "Agent Thelma Kibble, state parole."

  "Oh, yeah, Kibble. I was going to try to reach you today to talk about Black."

  "Since when does Nevada allow its PIs to run around with silencer-equipped weapons?"

  Karch did his best to look surprised.

  "Oh, you mean that? That's not mine. I found that in the drawer there. That's Cassie Black's. And you might be careful how you handle it. I think it's evidence."

  "Of what? You said it was a hot prowl."

  "They found the body of her old partner, a man named Jersey Paltz, in the desert. He was shot."

  Kibble looked down at the weapon in her left hand. Karch was about six feet away from her. He decided it was too risky to make a move from that distance.

  "Tell you what, Mr. Karch, why don't you very slowly open up your jacket for me?"

  "Sure."

  Karch slowly opened his jacket, exposing the empty shoulder holster.

  "I know what you're going to say," he said quickly. " 'Empty holster, the Sig must be his.' Not true. I have a license to carry a concealed weapon. But it's a Nevada state license. No good in California. If I had a weapon in this holster I would be breaking the law. My weapon is locked in its case in the trunk of my car. If you want to walk out with me I will show it to you."

  "I'm not worried about that. What I'm wondering is why you are here and not the Vegas cops. If there's a murder, why aren't the authorities involved? Why aren't they here?"

  "Well, first of all they are involved. But, as you must know, the police are ha
mpered by bureaucracy. I was hired by the Cleopatra Resort and Casino to investigate the room burglary. I have a staff and an expense account. I move faster. The police will be coming here and be in contact with you soon. In fact, I am working very closely with the Metro police. If you wish, I can give you the name and number of a detective who will vouch for me."

  If she bit, he would give her Iverson's number. He could ad lib it. Karch would have to work something out with Iverson later with either a payoff or a bullet. But Kibble didn't bite.

  "Even if someone vouched for you it wouldn't explain why you took it upon yourself to break into a suspect's home," she said.

  "I did not break in," Karch said indignantly. "The front door was wide open. Look, that's my car parked outside in the driveway. Would I park there if I was breaking in?"

  "You seem to have an answer for everything, Mr. Karch."

  "As long as they are true. Could you please stop pointing that gun at me now? I think I have sufficiently established who I am and what I'm doing here. Do you want to see my license now?"

  Kibble hesitated but then lowered her gun to her side. Karch dropped his hands to his side without her protesting. He had hoped she would actually put the weapon away but nonetheless was pleased by what he saw. He decided to stay on the offensive.

  "Now, can I ask you what you are doing here?"

  Kibble hiked her sizable shoulders.

  "I'm doing my job, Mr. Karch. Just a routine home call. Checking up on one of my cases."

  "Seems a little too coincidental to me."

  "I had a conversation with her a couple weeks ago that didn't sit well with me. I put her on my list of field checks. Didn't get to it until today."

  "And you came here instead of visiting the dealership?"

  "I called the dealership. She had a message on her line saying she wasn't in today. So I came here. Don't ask me any more questions, Mr. Karch. I'm asking you the questions."

  "Fine."

  He waved his hands in surrender.

  "You said there's a homicide in this? Well, I know Cassie Black probably better than anybody around here and I'll tell you right now there's no way she's involved in a homicide. No way."

  Karch thought of Hidalgo's body lying on the bed in the Cleo's penthouse.

  "We'll have to agree to disagree on that, Agent Kibble. The evidence speaks for itself. And after all, remember, we're talking about an ex-con here, one who served time in Nevada on a murder conviction."

  "It was a manslaughter and we both know the circumstances. The law held her responsible for her partner's death but she was twenty stories below when he went out the window. Somebody may have pushed him, but it wasn't her."

  "Is that what she said? That somebody pushed him?"

  "It's the way she had it figured. She said the casinos had to make an example of him. He got pushed."

  "That's bullshit, but never mind. How did she get out here?"

  "She had her parole transferred. Once she got the job lined up with Ray Morales at the dealership it was a cinch. She had a lawyer petition and the parole transfer was approved. She knew Ray from Vegas when she was a dealer. Ray's an ex-con who made it in the straight life. He wanted to give her a shot at it. He probably also wanted something else but Cassie never complained."

  Karch had thought Morales was an ex-con. When he'd put him down on the floor of the finance office Morales had taken it with a certain dignity you never saw in citizens. The woman was like the rest of them. She started to whimper and was going to shout so he'd had to shoot her first.

  "So did you get close to her?" Karch asked. "Close enough to know what made her blood move?"

  "You mean why she started ripping off high rollers in Vegas?"

  Karch nodded.

  "You ask me, I think it had something to do with her father. A degenerate gambler. I think she thought she was getting back at the casinos or something. I don't know."

  "I don't think you do. You mind if I sit down? I've got a bad back."

  He brought his arms up behind his back as if stretching the muscles. He kept talking the whole time.

  "I'm on a pension from Vegas Metro. Partial disability. Wrecked my back chasing down a guy dusted on meth. He picked me up and threw me down a flight of stairs . . ."

  None of it was true. It was all part of the sleight of hand. As he talked his left hand went under his jacket and picked the . 25 out of the silk pocket inside his rear belt line.

  "I have never seen that kind of power in a single human being . . ."

  He brought his hands forward and clasped them together in an ad-libbed stretching motion during which he transferred the gun to his right hand. He then held it palmed at his side as he groaned and sat down on the bed. Kibble was now about four feet away and still holding her weapon at her side. She held the Sig by the barrel in her other hand and also at her side. Karch knew he had her. But he wanted to get more information from her first.

  "Tell me about the kid she and Max Freeling had," he said.

  Kibble appraised him for a moment before answering.

  "What kid and what's it got to do with a hot prowl in Las Vegas?"

  Karch smiled and shook his head.

  "She didn't come here because some guy offered her a job selling cars, Agent Kibble. She came because she and Max had a kid and that kid ended up out here."

  He looked up at her.

  "But I think you know that, don't you?"

  "I don't know anything about where the child is but, yes, you're right. Cassie was pregnant when she got arrested. Kept it a secret till it showed. By then she had pleaded out and was at High Desert Correctional. The child was born there. She nursed the baby three days and then it was given away. She put it up for adoption."

  Karch nodded. He hadn't known the details but had already figured out the main aspects of the story.

  "You got kids, Agent Kibble?"

  "Two of them."

  "Three days. That long enough to make a bond? A bond that nobody can break?"

  "Three minutes is enough."

  "You know I'm tired - "

  He leapt up off the bed and stuck the . 25 into the collar of fat that was Kibble's neck.

  "-of your sarcastic way of answering me, Agent Kibble. It is - "

  He slapped the Beretta out of one of her hands and then reached over and took the Sig Sauer from the other.

  "-really starting to bug me."

  Kibble froze and her eyes widened.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "I'm sticking the short barrel of a twenty-five pop gun into your fat neck, Agent Kibble. I'm now going to ask you a few more questions and you're going to leave the bullshit out of your voice when you answer. Am I right about this?"

  "Yes," she whispered. "Like I said, I got two kids. I'm all they got, so please don't - "

  Karch sidestepped her and then pushed her down onto the bed. He put the . 25 back into its pocket and pointed the Sig at her. He reached up and made sure the silencer was still properly attached. He waited until her frightened eyes looked up at him before he spoke.

  "Well, if you want to see them again, you answer a few questions and without any of that fat lip anymore."

  "Okay, okay. What questions?"

  "What else you know about the kid she had? The girl."

  "Nothing. Just the one time she told me about the birth and stuff. That was all she ever mentioned about it."

  "Why'd it come up?"

  "I was showing her pictures of my boys and she just mentioned it. It was at the beginning and she had just come out from Nevada. I was trying to get to know her a bit and she seemed like a good girl."

  "What else she say? She didn't say her kid ended up out here?"

  "Never mentioned it. She said she told Max she was pregnant on that last night - the night he went out the window."

  "That night?"

  "That's what she said. She said it was going to be their last job. She told him she was going to have a baby beforehand and
Max got all protective. He wouldn't let her do the hot prowl. So he did it."

  "What are you saying, that she was supposed to be the one who went up into that room?"

  "You didn't know that?"

  "How could anybody know? Max ended up splattered across a craps table and she never talked. She took a plea instead. Now I fucking know why."