Cut to the Quick

by Dianne Emley

  Thinking he’d lose him when he went upstairs for the book signing, Scoville was jarred to see him standing right there, looking like a hulking mass of lard on a tray of petit fours.

  When Scoville caught the guy’s eye where he was standing at the bookcase, he didn’t look away, but held Scoville’s gaze, his dark irises barely visible beneath fleshy eyelids. Scoville jerked around to face front. Had the guy winked at him?

  Maybe this character was some lowlife this Crowley had met in prison. Best to ignore him.

  Deciding to forget about it, he opened a small handled shopping bag that had a gold sticker in the shape of a medallion on the front and took out a heavy lump in lilac-colored tissue paper. He unwrapped it, revealing a shiny chrome figure of a jungle cat in mid-leap.

  “How beautiful,” said the woman sitting beside him. She was of Asian descent, but either California-born or -raised given her speech. “Is that an antique hood ornament?”

  “Yes, from a nineteen-thirties-era Jaguar. I found it at a little shop up the street.” Scoville had suggested to Dena that they find such an ornament for her Jag. She’d of course had a negative, knee-jerk reaction, claiming that people used to be sliced up by such ornaments in car crashes, which was why, if they were installed at all, they were rinky-dink and had break-away wires. To hell with her and Ralph Nader. He thought the leaping cat was cool.

  “Don’t they have the best shops here? I love Pasadena.”

  Scoville noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and appeared to be there by herself. She had several copies of Razored Soul in a bag by her feet. She was attractive. He indulged in a ten-second fantasy of him and her leaving the bookstore together, having a drink, and one thing leading to another leading to a tryst in a hotel room.

  He had never cheated on Dena. There were call girls in Vegas, but he didn’t consider that cheating. Things between him and Dena had been frosty for a long time. The separate-bedroom thing that had started as a workweek convenience had become a lifestyle. It was nice to have a woman look at him with something other than disdain or spreadsheets in her eyes.

  “Are you going to put it on your car?” the woman asked.

  “I was thinking of using it as a paperweight.” He extended his hand. “I’m Mark Scoville.”

  “Hi, I’m Sally Kitamura.” She pointed to Crowley’s book on his lap. “Have you read it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Ohh.…” She sighed. “It’s so powerful. I read it in one sitting. I didn’t get up, cook dinner, do the laundry, nothing. I bought copies for my friends and family. It’s scary and gritty, but inspirational too. Everyone should read it. I love the way he writes. His prose is spare but evocative. Hemingwayesque, I guess. Manly. Macho even, although I detest that word.”

  Her eyes widened as she was distracted by something behind Scoville. She gasped, then said, “There he is.”

  Scoville was quickly forgotten as Bowie Crowley made his way to the front of the room. After a gushing introduction by the store’s promotions manager, Crowley took the podium. He was dressed in his trademark snug black T-shirt, scuffed motorcycle boots, faded Levi’s button-front jeans, and a hand-painted leather belt with his name and red roses on it. Any fan knew the belt was made for him by his prison buddy, Spider, who was serving life without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting two people during a convenience store robbery.

  “Thank you all for coming. I’m always blown away by the people who come out to see me, who’ve been touched by my book. It’s awesome.” Crowley tapped his closed fist against his heart. “Thank you. I’ll read a little, then I’ll take some questions.”

  “On anything?” a woman asked, accompanied by tittering from the crowd.

  Crowley gave the questioner a guarded smile. “Sure. There are a few things I keep private, but most of my life is an open book, as they say.”

  He opened his book, nervously scratched at his face, and started reading from the beginning.

  “ ‘Some people have it easy. Born lucky. By that, I don’t mean just the good family, the nice house, the money. I mean they’re born with a pure soul. They’re just good people from the get-go. A person like that, you can take to the bank. No matter what things come down in their lives, they’re going to do the right thing. Then there are people like me.’ ”

  Scoville left without having his book signed, slipping away without saying goodbye to the cute girl, Sally. When he walked through the store on his way out, he kept his eyes open for the oily lug and was relieved when he didn’t see him. He wrote the incident off to general weirdness in the universe.

  He sat in his Porsche in the bookstore parking lot, having selected a dark spot that gave him a view of the back entrance and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked near it. He knew that Crowley rode a Harley. Scoville had thought about it a lot and decided the only thing he could do to get out of the mess he’d gotten himself into was to warn Crowley that some freak wanted him dead.

  Scoville had turned off his cell phone and sat there in silence, chewing and spitting out his fingernails while he watched people get into their cars and leave.

  He was startled when first one black-and-white Pasadena police cruiser and then a second sped into the parking lot. Four uniformed officers got out and jogged into the store. Scoville could hear chatter on the police band through the open windows of the patrol cars. More PPD prowlers arrived and more officers went inside the store.

  The arrival of the cops caused the people leaving the parking lot to pick up their pace. It was nearly empty, and the store had passed its closing time.

  A black sedan showed up, a police vehicle with chrome spotlights attached to both sides of the windshield. A good-looking Latino in a suit and tie got out and headed into the store. A uniformed officer called him Lieutenant Beltran.

  Scoville thought the lieutenant looked vaguely familiar.

  Finally, the police began returning to their cars and taking off. Two officers came out of the store leading a heavyset man whom Scoville had not seen before. His hands were cuffed behind his back.

  Crowley brought up the rear, engaged in conversation with the lieutenant, who was carrying a book. Scoville, sitting in the topless Porsche, could hear some of their conversation. They were talking about writing.

  An officer tried to get the handcuffed man to go voluntarily into the back of a patrol car but he resisted when he saw Crowley coming.

  “Crowley murdered my son. I’ve got a right to tell my side of the story.”

  Two officers were grappling to put him in the car when Crowley interrupted.

  “Officers, if I might have a word with Donnie.”

  The officers looked at Lieutenant Beltran, who said, “Go ahead, Bowie. Just keep your distance.”

  “He’s cool,” Crowley said. “Aren’t ya, Donnie? You’re cool.”

  “Yeah, I’m cool. I’m cool.” Baker stopped struggling, but the two officers still restrained him.

  Crowley came closer. “Whatcha’ doin’, Donnie? What’s happening here?”

  “You’re gonna have a word with me one day, Bowie.”

  “You don’t want that, Donnie. Lookit chu. Now you’re going to jail. Think Dallas would have wanted that for his old man?”

  Baker bit his lip and looked away.

  Crowley took a step closer to lay a hand on Baker’s shoulder.

  Baker kicked him in the shin.

  “Get him outta here!” Beltran made a swooping motion with his hand.

  “That’s it, buddy, you’re going to jail.” The cops pressed Baker’s head down while they shoved him into the back of the patrol car.

  Crowley grimaced and limped. “You asshole. You always were a dipshit.” He clenched and opened his fists.

  “Look me in the eye and tell me that, Bowie.”

  Crowley took a step toward the patrol car as if he was about to take up Baker’s dare, but an officer slammed the door shut.

  Baker continued raging through the car window.
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  “You okay, Bowie?” Beltran asked. “You need medical attention?”

  “Hell no. I’m fine.” Crowley ran both hands through his hair and looked at the patrol car, which was taking off. A dimple formed in his cheek above his jaw as he clenched his teeth.

  Baker had turned to stare at him through the back window.

  Beltran hovered. “You want to press charges? Come down to the station and we’ll take a picture of your leg.”

  “It’s nothing.” Crowley breathed heavily through his nose, watching the patrol car as it turned onto Colorado Boulevard and disappeared. Seeming to remember himself, he turned toward Beltran. “Thanks, Lieutenant. I’m good.” He managed a tense smile. “Send me your screenplay. I’d like to read it.”

  Beltran flashed his broad smile. “Really? That’s great. Thanks, Bowie.”

  “No problem.” Crowley got on his Harley and took off.

  The motorcycle’s engine startled Scoville. All of his plans seemed to go to shit. After all, why should he care what happened to this pretty-boy murdering fuck? But then again, maybe it was the right thing to do. Hard to tell anymore.

  Scoville thought he was doing a decent job of following Crowley without being detected, keeping a few cars between him and the Harley. He thought he’d lost him a couple of times, but was able to find the bright single headlight and taillight again.

  Crowley took a route from Pasadena that was familiar to Scoville, entering the twisting Arroyo Parkway at its mouth, following it downtown, and then changing to the 101, the Hollywood Freeway. He exited at Melrose and headed west through the shabby neighborhoods of East Hollywood. At Rossmore, the eastern boundary of Hancock Park, Crowley turned left.

  For Scoville, the route was not just familiar, it was too familiar.

  Crowley slowed while he made a call on his cell phone and Scoville wondered if he was asking for directions.

  A vague nausea again riled Scoville’s stomach. It wasn’t visions of blood and gore that tormented him now but thoughts of betrayal. Dena had interviewed Crowley on her show that morning. Why had she been so concerned about when he was coming home? He couldn’t remember the last time she’d even asked. He knew the kids were gone.

  When Crowley turned down Pinewood Lane, Scoville felt an acidic burn at the back of his throat as reflux rose. When Crowley turned into Scoville’s driveway, Scoville kept driving.

  Scoville parked his car around the corner and sprinted back. He skirted through the neighbors’ yard, reaching over their unlocked back gate to pull the release. He knew they were still at their cabin in Big Bear. Their aged black Labrador wagged his tail and licked Scoville’s hand, thinking the neighbor was there to feed him, as the Scoville family watched over the dog when the owners were traveling.

  At the rear of the neighbors’ yard, Scoville scampered up an oak tree, placing his feet on nails that Dahlia had driven into the trunk for footholds. Dena had told him about Dahlia’s covert entryway onto their property. Easing over the spikes on top of his fence, he dropped into soft dirt behind the pool house.

  He cursed when he tripped a motion-activated light. He waited for Dena’s face to appear at one of the back windows. It did not.

  Creeping around the side of the house, he peered into the kitchen. It was dark and empty. The dining room was too, although in the thin light from the night lamps, he saw a black blob on the light area rug. Could it be a black T-shirt?

  Taking advantage of the old Tudor’s many windows, he spotted more cast-off articles of clothing. The sight of each one was like a tender stab wound from a needle. Finally, he came upon them, the nightlights in the house and the diamond-shaped panes of glass creating a broken, dreamlike haze to the nightmare that was occurring before his eyes.

  Crowley had Dena bent over a couch. Her back was arched, and she crushed the cushions between her fists.

  Scoville could hear their moans. He watched. In spite of himself, he watched. He saw things differently. Maybe the freak had been right. The world would be a better place without Bowie Crowley.

  EIGHTEEN

  More calls to Bennie Lusk,” Vining said. “Must have been a big sports weekend.”

  It was Tuesday morning.

  Vining and Kissick sat at one end of the large table in the conference-room-turned-war-room while Ruiz and Caspers took up the other. Each wielded a highlighting pen as they pored over pages of telephone records. Vining and Kissick were investigating Mark Scoville, and Ruiz and Caspers were on the trail of Lauren Richards’s stalker, Dillon Somerset.

  Vining and Kissick had learned that Lusk was a bookie who worked out of a hair salon in Burbank. Scoville’s incoming and outgoing cell phone calls over the past twelve months showed an escalating number of calls to Lusk, which indicated a worsening gambling problem.

  “Wish we could get Scoville’s credit card data,” Vining said. “I bet he gambles online.”

  “I’ll take that bet and raise you.” Kissick grinned. “Gambling is squeezing out the rest of his life. His business calls have cycled down, while his gambling-related calls have ramped up. Another call to the Wynn in Vegas. We can contact their security. If Scoville’s a player, they would know what kind of dough he throws down.”

  “We know what makes him throw up,” Vining said. “You heard about our two cadets seeing Scoville lose his cookies in the street in front of Mercer’s house.”

  She felt energized, pumped up by the hunt. They were inching closer, peeling away the layers. Soon, she hoped, there would be that rare but glorious moment when they broke through and the truth spilled out like molten lava.

  The other hunt, however, lurked in the background. She thought of Nitro sitting on a bed in a ward at the Big G, and counted down the hours until his release. She occasionally slipped from her slacks pocket the cropped photo she’d made of his eyes. Each time, it gave her a little shiver. She wanted Nitro at the Big G and not in jail for a reason. She had to act quickly.

  The ticking clock on Nitro’s incarceration had motivated her to call Lieutenant Owen Donahue with the Tucson P.D. She told him she’d like to come out and look through the Johnna Alwin homicide case files, as they might shed light on an unsolved attempted murder in Pasadena. He said anytime. That was Vining’s problem: time.

  She couldn’t go to Tucson now, yet she had to. Was that T. B. Mann’s plan? Pull her in too many directions, make her lose focus and let another murderer go? Let another murderer go?

  “Somerset seriously needs to get a life.” Caspers leaned over his documents with one arm circled around them on the table, as if protecting his plate from voracious brothers at dinnertime. “He called Richards like twenty times a day. One-minute calls. Calling and hanging up. Here’s one that lasted three minutes. He probably connected with her and she told him to kiss off. She was cute, but man, no chick’s worth that. Wake up, brother!”

  “I’m having a bad feeling that Somerset is gone for good.” Ruiz always frowned when he was doing detailed work, his dense eyebrows nearly forming a solid line. “His parents say he goes backpacking in these wilderness areas, and he’s sometimes gone for weeks. He’s into that survivalist, living-off-the-land crap.”

  He shook his head, his yellow marker motionless in his hand, not seeing the task in front of him but seeing his chance to snap the cuffs on a major bad guy fading away, and with it his big chance to prove his mettle as a homicide investigator. He was still having a hard time swallowing the fact that Vining had displaced him. It was a crock what Sergeant Early had told him about being rotated out as part of routine cross-training. He knew it. Worse, everyone knew it.

  Vining tapped a highlighter pen against a page. “Dena Hale was spreading sunshine when talking about how everything was hearts and flowers between her and Scoville. What wife wants to put up with this level of gambling? These are not friendly wagers on a couple of favorite teams. This is a lifestyle.”

  “But Nan, he wins as much as he loses.” Kissick joked, spouting the gambling addict’s stock r
ationalization. “I spoke this morning with the owner of Drive By Media, the firm that wanted to merge with Marquis. He said Mercer thought Scoville was cooking the books. The real reason Scoville didn’t want the merger to go through is because it would be revealed that he’d sucked the firm dry. Mercer felt Scoville had talked him into investing in Marquis not to expand but because he needed money to keep the doors open.”

  “Dena Hale …” Caspers let the name hang in the air.

  After a beat, Vining said, “She’s hot,” timing it precisely to chime in with Caspers’s identical pronouncement. She cackled maliciously.

  Caspers was defensive. “She is. She’s way hot.” His cell phone rang, giving him an out. “Whassup, peckerhead? I’m gonna be there. You gonna be there? Ten o’clock. Later.”

  Ruiz gave his partner a baleful look. “You’re going someplace at ten o’clock tonight? Better not be draggin’ your ass in here tomorrow.”

  “It’s my buddy’s girlfriend’s birthday,” Caspers said. “Don’t sweat it, T. I’m young.”

  “Youth is wasted on the young,” Ruiz countered.

  “Old people love to say that,” Casper complained. “It’s a crock.”

  Vining drew the highlighter across the page. “Tuesday, August first, eleven-ten a.m., incoming call, sixteen minutes long from an eight-one-eight area code. I haven’t come across this number before, have you, Jim?”

  Kissick looked at the sheet she slid in front of him. He shook his head. “Eight-one-eight. That’s most of the San Fernando Valley, with a gazillion people.”

  Vining picked her cell phone up from the table. “Let’s see who answers.” She placed the call and just as quickly ended it. “Number’s out of service.”

  “Sixteen minutes,” Kissick said. “Scoville’s calls to his bookie barely last ten. Calls to his wife are done in less than five. He spends more time talking to his golf buddies than his wife.”

  He looked at Caspers. “Alex, you know who would be good to ask about your tattoo? Cameron Lam in SES. He’s fluent in a couple of Chinese dialects. You know him?”