"Sorry, man," he whispered. Ray and I had worked at least twenty homicides together and had established a good on-the-job relationship. I nodded at him, then we walked over and I looked into the car.
The front seat was drenched in blood. Fear swept over me, almost blinding my vision. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. I told myself that I was a trained homicide detective and I needed to treat this car as just another murder scene. I willed myself to look at it dispassionately. I already knew this was going to be the most important investigation of my career. Regardless of what I'd told Sepulveda and Figueroa, there was no way I was going home to wait for these guys to call and fill me in. Until Alexa was located, I was going to be all over this. I took another deep breath and began to form a careful mental picture of the crime scene.
The guy in the passenger seat was a middle-aged African-American. His wrists were cuffed behind him and he'd been shot behind the left ear, execution style. The bullet's trajectory looked to be downward and the exit wound had taken out half his right cheek. He was slumped forward with his forehead resting on the dash, still dripping blood and cerebral spinal fluid all over Alexa's right floor mat. He had long, black hair, which was straightened in a Marcel. The impact of the bullet had knocked the Marcel loose and strands of the shiny, straightened do now hung over his ears. He was muscular, dressed in a sleeveless leather vest and pants with gang tats all over his arms. The big ABC tattoo decorated his large left bicep. He also had BTK on his arm Born to Kill. There was blow back and blood spatter everywhere, except for where the driver had been sitting. If the driver was the shooter, and the bullet was fired from the driver's seat, it seemed to me that the trajectory was slightly wrong. Alexa is five-eight and for the bullet to have a downward trajectory, the doer had to either be taller or standing outside, shooting across her. The passenger side window had not been broken by the exiting bullet, so the slug was probably buried in the lower door panel. Alexa's backseat held several old case boxes and a green sweater. All of it had been there this morning. The backseat seemed untouched.
"Looks like someone was sitting here when the shot was fired," Figueroa said, pointing to the clean spot where the driver would have been.
I didn't respond.
"See anything we can use?" Sepulveda asked, looking hard at me.
"We were doing that retraining day at the jail this morning," I said. "She was in jeans, tennies, and a gray, unmarked sweatshirt." "Better put that on the air," Rafie said, and Sepulveda crossed to their car to make the broadcast.
"All that stuff in the backseat was there, but her briefcase is missing. And her purse."
"Okay," Rafie said. "Describe those."
"Purse was canvas and black. One of those designer deals with pockets all over it. Briefcase was brown alligator. Small. Wafer-sized."
Rafie said, "You know the vie?"
"No."
"Never seen him?"
"Nope."
"If those turn out to be her cuffs, we're gonna have us a situation here."
"She didn't drive up here and pop this guy," I said hotly.
"Let's move back. Give the C. S. guys some room to work," Rafie said. He led me away from the BMW and back to their Crown Vic where Sepulveda was just hanging up the mike.
"Anything else?" Rafie asked.
"I left her at Parker Center around six. She said she was going to go visit the chief in the hospital before his surgery tomorrow. I was over at USC Medical on an unrelated matter but she never showed up. Her secretary said she was maybe going to try and fit in an appointment."
"You know with who?" Tommy asked.
"No. But you could ask Ellen in her office. Maybe she does."
"Okay, what next?" Tommy said.
"I went home. She wasn't there. Then you guys called."
"Who's the rat-bag sitting in your car?" Rafie was looking over at my Acura.
Bodine was still in the front seat. He had his head back, his dreads hanging over the headrest, eyes closed, zoning out. I'd stupidly left the keys in the car. Probably the only thing that was keeping Long Gone John from clouting my ride was he would have had to do it in front of ten cops.
"That's Jonathan Bodine. He's a homeless guy. He has nothing to do with this."
"Okay, Shane. That's it, then. If you think of anything else, write it down and leave it on my desk." "Right."
"And if you try and work this, me and Tommy will break your back." "Right."
"I'm serious, man. Mess with this and we're all headed for the zoo."
"Gimme a little credit here. I'm not going near it."
They exchanged looks, nodded, and then both moved slowly away from the car, treading on that questionable promise like thin October ice.
Once they had stopped looking back at me, I got into my car and pulled away.
"What we doin' now?" Bodine asked. I ignored him and drove past the commotion and found a spot around the bend where I pulled the car off the road and down into some trees. Then I killed the lights and turned off the engine.
"We on some kinda dumb-ass camping trip here? What's this about, douche bag?" Bodine complained.
"Shut up and stay in the car."
I got out, taking the keys, grabbed my black mag-light from behind the seat and began to walk down the hill through dense foliage, making my way back toward the crime scene, using the underbrush for cover. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, or what I was hoping to find. I guess my plan was to look in the bushes below the site where the car was parked, hoping I wouldn't find my dead wife down there. My stomach was full of acid and I was fighting back waves of nausea.
I kept the light on, but as I got nearer to the cops at the crime scene above, I took out my handkerchief and wrapped it over the lens, cutting the light down by two-thirds. Then I swung the dull beam right and left looking in the underbrush, praying I wouldn't find her. I don't know how long I walked around. Ten minutes, maybe thirty. I could hear cops talking above me on the road.
Then, I shined my light to the right, and something glinted. I moved over and found myself looking down at a small, nickel-plated, 9mm foreign automatic.
There was little doubt in my mind that it was the murder weapon. I also recognized the pistol. It was Alexa's purse gun. Her 9mm Spanish Astra.
Chapter 5.
I STOOD LOOKING at the gun, forcing myself to deconstruct the situation, analyze its components. I knew that if Alexa didn't turn up soon with a good explanation why there was a dead gang-banger handcuffed and executed with her weapon in her car, then she was going to be the number one suspect in the case.
My first inclination was to scoop up the gun and suppress the evidence. I actually bent down and started to retrieve the weapon but as I reached for it, I knew I couldn't do it. My reasons were not very complicated. First, it violated everything I now tried to stand for. Second, it seemed to be an admission that deep down I actually thought she might be guilty of this, and I knew she wasn't. I hesitated with my fingers inches from the gun, then withdrew my hand.
I also had practical evidentiary concerns. If someone had forced Alexa over, abducted her, then shot the Crip in her car using her gun, there might be fingerprints or DNA on the weapon that could be traced and eventually lead to my missing wife.
I retraced my steps and found John Bodine standing beside the car looking down at me as I came up the slope.
"I'm freezin' my ass off. Where you been?"
"Hey John, if your busy schedule can't accommodate this and you wanta take off it's okay with me."
"You still owe me. Got me some payback comin' "
"That's what I thought."
I turned and walked back up the road toward the crime scene. When I rounded the bend, I could see Tommy Sepulveda standing next to the coroner's van talking to a crime scene photographer. I couldn't spot Rafie.
"I thought you left," Sepulveda said as I approached.
"Come here. I need to talk to you."
Tommy Sepulveda moved away f
rom the CSI and followed me down the road, around the bend. "Where're we going?"
"Wanta show you something."
I stayed a few yards ahead of him, moving fast enough so he couldn't catch up and pepper me with questions. I didn't want to talk about this with him because I didn't trust what I might say. Emotionally, I was too close to the edge. We approached my car where Bodine was now leaning against the front fender, watching us with disinterested, bloodshot eyes.
"Howdy," Sepulveda said.
Bodine just grunted as I led Sepulveda past and started down the slope through the underbrush, shining my flashlight, trying to follow my exact path from earlier. I didn't want to contaminate the drop site in case the killer had walked down here from the road above. A minute or two later, we were standing over the Spanish Astra, both shining our flashlights on it.
"Bingo," Tommy said softly.
"I think it's Alexa's," I admitted. "She packs a nickel-plated Astra nine."
Sepulveda let out a long sigh, which more or less, said it all. He didn't like where this was going any more than I did.
"She didn't kill that guy, Tommy."
"I'm not saying she did." "That's what you were thinking."
"Yeah." He stood there for a long moment and then turned to me. "I told you that you were not part of this investigation. So what the hell were you doing down here?"
"Wanta just leave it here?"
"Don't be a cowboy, Shane. Me and Rafie told you to stay away from this. You know how much shit we're all gonna take if I. A. thinks we let you investigate your own wife's disappearance and potential involvement in a homicide."
"I came down here to take a leak happened to see it. Is it against the law to piss, now?"
"Forty yards through sticker bushes and brambles. Now I'm supposed to be an idiot, too?"
"Book the gun, Tommy. Look for prints. She didn't pop that guy, somebody else did. If that's the murder weapon, then somebody else fired it."
"Get out of here, Shane. I'm not gonna tell anybody you found this. Believe me, I'm doing you a big favor, but so help me, if I see you anywhere near this case again, I'm gonna write up a one-eighty-one." A Professional Standards Bureau complaint.
"She didn't do it. How about extending her a little loyalty? How about you and Figueroa keeping an open mind till all the facts are in?"
"I never should've called you. I should've seen this coming. It's my fault, but you've been warned, Shane. From here on, it's a book play. Turn up on this again and I'll have you arrested for obstruction of justice."
He turned and walked back up to the road to get the crime techs. I followed, then got into my car with Bodine and backed out of the trees and onto the road. I drove over Mulholland to Coldwater Canyon and headed down the hill into the Valley.
"I'm hungry," Bodine said.
I didn't answer.
"Man's gotta eat."
I still didn't answer.
"Gonna go get me a fire-breathing hard-on from the Legal Aid. You gonna curse the day you ran down the Crown Prince of Cameroon. The prince ain't some sleep-in-the-park half-stepper you can scrape off yer shoe. You about to explode in the oven, asshole."
He never stopped. He just kept filling the car with nonsense and complaints. So I pulled over and parked about a block from the 101 Freeway. Then I reached across Bodine and pushed open the passenger door.
"Get outta my car." I had no more time for this. My life had just taken a horrible turn and I had too much on my mind to deal with him.
"You can't just throw me out!"
"Watch me."
I got out of the car, came around, and threw Bodine's door wide. I yanked him out of the seat by the collar of Chooch's sweatshirt and slung him away from me. He stumbled into the trunk of an elm tree, but managed to keep from going down.
"That's assault! Police brutality!"
"Leave me alone!" I was totally over the edge, out of control and screaming at him.
"This is the Valley. I don't wanna be in the Valley. I hate the Valley. Wanta go back to Sixth Street."
I shoved a handful of bills at him and yelled, "Take a cab!"
I got back in the car and put it in gear. Bodine started banging on the window, but I locked the doors before he could get inside. I pressed the accelerator down and pulled away. He ran alongside, banging on the glass until I finally left him standing in the middle of Coldwater, screaming after me.
It wasn't until I got off the freeway on Mission Street that I remembered I still had his shopping cart and all of his rubbish in the back of my car.
Chapter 6.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER I was parked across from the Medical Examiner's Facility on North Mission Road in a spot with a good view of the lighted parking lot. The coroner's van would be arriving in the next half hour with Ray Tsu and the dead Crip G aboard.
I knew I had to call Chooch. I didn't want him to hear about this on the news in the morning, but I dreaded making the call. Reluctantly, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the number for USC summer football housing. The team was staying at an apartment complex near Howard Jones Field to facilitate training table, curfews, and six A. M. wake-ups. After ten rings, an assistant coach finally answered and after I told him who I was, said he'd go and get Chooch out of bed.
Ten minutes later, Chooch came on the line.
"Yeah?"
It's me, Chooch. I've got bad news."
He sounded sleepy, but that brought him out of it fast. "What bad news?"
"Your mom is missing. They found her car up on Mulholland an hour ago. There was a dead gang-banger in the front seat. She's not there. Nobody knows what happened to her."
"What?" he shouted.
"I know . . . look, there could be a lot of explanations. Unfortunately, some of them are bad. I don't have anything else, but I'm working on it. I'll let you know as soon as I come up with something."
"I'm coming home."
"No, you're not!"
"Dad, if Alexa "
I cut him off. "Listen to me, son. I'm not supposed to work on this because she's my wife and I'm emotionally involved, but screw that, because nobody will work it harder than me. And there're some problems I need to address. An issue with her gun."
"Dad, I'm not staying here."
"You're not coming home, either."
"Why not?"
"Right now, I've got a chance to run free for a short time, but that won't last long. I might get a jump on this if I kick ass right now, but when the two homicide cops who got the squeal catch up with me, I'm gonna be in a world of hurt. I can't put you in the equation. I don't have time."
"She's my mom!"
"I know. But son, what are you gonna be able to do, really?"
"I'll . . . we'll talk it over. I'll ... I don't know. I can't just stay here and hit a blocking sled."
"Tell the coaches. I'm sure they'll let you take some time off. But you've gotta stay where you are. Let me do this my way."
There was a long pause. I could hear him breathing.
"Dad, what do you mean there're issues with her gun?"
"It might be the murder weapon."
"And they think Mom shot this banger dude?"
"They're cops. They'll follow the evidence wherever it leads. But whatever you hear on TV, remember who your mom is. I'm not letting this get sideways. Wherever she is, I'll find her."
"What if . . . what if . . ."
"She's not dead, son. She can't be. I won't allow it."
After that, we didn't know what to say to each other.
"I'll call you in the morning," I said.
"Okay."
"Love you," I said. There was silence. "Say it back, Chooch. I need to hear it."
"I love you, too, Dad." He sounded devastated.
I hung up the phone and looked out the window again at the North Mission Road building. It was a new, plain-looking structure that housed the morgue and all of our forensic science units. Like most municipal buildings, budget considerations had de
prived it of any architectural extras. It was a shoebox with windows.
I'd worked enough homicides to know pretty much how the next hour would play out. Ray Tsu would bring the corpse here, and do the preliminary death photos, prints, and dental work. Sepulveda and Figueroa would finish up at the crime scene, impound the car, and then head back to stand over the body while Ray, or the chief ME did the autopsy. Because Alexa was missing, it was an APE case and ticking PR bomb. For that reason, there wouldn't be the standard two-week wait for an autopsy, which had been a growing problem for homicide cops in L. A. They would do the cut tonight. That meant if I moved fast, I might have half an hour to forty minutes alone to work on Ray Tsu before Tommy and Rafie arrived. I had to make that forty minutes count, and find out who did this dead Crip was. Then I had to work that angle fast. It was the best thread in the case.
I sat in the front seat of the Acura, running the other permutations. I couldn't come up with a theory that accommodated what appeared to have happened. If you took Alexa out of the equation, it was easier to understand. A dead banger in cuffs, executed up on Mulholland, could fit a lot of scenarios. He could have been kidnapped, driven up to that lonely spot, popped, and left there for somebody to find in the morning. Handcuffs were easy to get. I'd seen dozens of hits that more or less went down like that.
It was adding Alexa to the picture that skewed everything. What series of events, what missing facts, made Alexa's involvement and subsequent disappearance add up? I couldn't think of anything.
Half an hour later, the coroner's van swept into the lot. I waited while Ray Tsu and the driver pulled the gurney out of the back. They popped the wheels down and rolled the dead Crip inside. On their way, they hit a button to close the electric parking lot gate.
I jumped out of the Acura, locked it with a chirp, and sprinted across the street, making it through the gates just as they were closing. I rang the bell at the back door of the building, held up my badge for the security camera, and was buzzed in.
Nobody was sitting behind the downstairs admitting desk. The midnight-to-six shift had been pared in half during the last round of budget cuts. Usually there were two guards back here a lucky breach of security because I had no business to conduct. There was a camera in the entry hall taping the room, so I crossed to the security desk and signed in for the benefit of the guard up on three, writing Samik Mampuna on the entry log. Then I took the elevator to the fourth floor where autopsies and body preps were done.
White Sister (2006) Page 3
