by Scott Frost
“We’ll need a copy of this,” I said, “and a watch put on the house in case Danny comes back.”
Harrison nodded. I stepped closer to the drawing and looked at the small circle with my father’s name in the center of it. Were his secrets concealed in the labyrinth of lines and orbits covering this wall? Or did this take him even farther from me?
“It’s like trying to read a language that’s never been written down before,” I said.
Harrison stepped up next to me and wondered at its mad logic. “Until we can penetrate the drawing’s code, none of this may make sense. Even then it may just be the ramblings of a paranoid manic depressive, making connections where there are none.”
“It could also be someone with a dark angel,” I said.
“If that dark angel exists at all.”
“My brother and Detective Williams are dead,” I said. “We have to assume that somewhere in this must be a sliver of truth.”
Harrison’s eyes began to follow the lines on the wall as if they were wires on one of the explosives he used to disarm on the bomb squad.
“There may be only two people in the world who can make sense of all this. One is a paranoid . . . the other apparently dropped from the heavens,” Harrison said.
“I doubt the maker of this will trust anyone enough to share his secrets,” I said.
Harrison nodded in agreement.
“So how do you find an angel?” he asked.
“You don’t,” I said. “They find you.”
17
It was after dark when Harrison and I left Danny Fisher’s garage and started back to Pasadena. Two uniformed officers were watching the house in case Fisher returned. A crime-scene investigator had photographed the drawing, section by section, so it could be pieced together into a full-size mosaic. The hundreds of papers tacked to the walls and scattered across the floor had been boxed and taken to headquarters. So far, there was no proof that Danny’s “dark angel” existed.
If somewhere in those lines and orbits drawn on that wall Danny disclosed the identity of the River Killer, we didn’t find it. The only thing I was certain of was that the world I knew so well just forty-eight hours before had begun to resemble the confused nightmare of Danny’s map.
As we rounded the bend over the arroyo just west of downtown Pasadena I looked north toward the foothills where I lived. Where the lights of houses normally sparkled in the distance there was only the odd spot of orange flame in the darkness.
“Jesus,” Harrison whispered.
I reached for my cell phone but stopped myself. Even if my house was still there, the surrounding phone and power lines would be down or gone completely. Making a call would do little good.
“I need to see if my house is still there,” I said.
We exited at Fair Oaks and headed up toward the hills. Six blocks from my house two squads blocked the road. I recognized the patrol sergeant and he waved us through. A block farther on we passed the last streets that still had power and drove into the darkness.
There were no other cars moving, no people on lawns or sitting on front steps. Down a side street I saw the unmistakable shape of a horse standing in the middle of the street. Down another, the flashing lights of a fire chief’s car cut through the dark and then disappeared.
At the bottom of Mariposa, Harrison stopped the car and I stepped out. Partly burned fire hoses were stretched across the street, still attached to the hydrant. Debris littered the streets as in the aftermath of a battle—roof tiles, wood, paper, puddles of waterlogged ash, a partly melted plastic lawn toy, the burned remains of a shoe. Somewhere in the dark I could hear the sound of a sprinkler spraying water with the steady beat of a metronome.
I walked out into the middle of the street and looked up the sloping ivy-covered banks to where my neighbors’ houses lined the street. In the darkness not a single silhouette of a roofline was visible.
“They’re gone,” I said. “All of them.”
Harrison stepped up beside me.
“It could be different up at your end of the block,” he said.
“Yes, it could be worse,” I said.
I tried to take a breath but the air held a bitter taste that was different from the smoke of the morning.
“A lot of chemicals have been off-gassed,” Harrison said.
“It’s more than that,” I said.
It was as if the air now held all that was lost in each of those houses. All the dreams, all the failures, all the moments that no one remembers that make up a single day, week after week, year after year. Like the phantom pains of an amputee, I could feel the missing homes’ presence as surely as if they were still standing.
“The earth moves, the hills burn. Young mothers are murdered and twenty years later a son goes mad trying to understand why,” I said. “And every year more people keep coming here thinking California is the promised land.”
I looked at Harrison for a moment. “Damn this place.”
I turned and started back to the car when my cell phone rang. It was Chief Chavez.
“The mother of Hector Lopez says he wants to turn himself in to you.”
“The Western Union clerk?”
“Yeah. He must be afraid LAPD is going to kill him if he’s caught by them.”
“He’s probably right,” I said.
“His mother said he told you he didn’t do it. He was just scared, that’s why he hit you. He wants to prove it by surrendering to you. You believe him?” Chavez asked.
“He didn’t kill Detective Williams. Where do I pick him up?”
“There’s a Ralph’s grocery store on Figueroa in Highland Park.”
“I know it,” I said. It was less than twenty minutes from where Harrison and I were standing.
“Park in the south corner of the parking lot. He sees that you’re alone, he drives up and surrenders.”
“Fine.”
“I told her you wouldn’t be alone.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“No. You’re either alone, or no deal.”
“So I do it alone.”
“That’s not going to work,” Chavez said.
“There are two people who can identify my brother’s killer: Dana Courson and Hector Lopez.”
“We still haven’t found Dana,” Chavez said.
“I need Lopez, and I need him before LAPD gets him.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Chavez said. “Lopez will be there in an hour. We’ll put a wire on you, and I’ll have three units within five seconds of you.”
“He’s a Western Union clerk, not a cop killer,” I said.
“Until he’s in cuffs in the back of your car, he’s both.”
We agreed on a meeting place several blocks from the Ralph’s, where I could be fitted with a wire, and then I hung up.
“Lopez?” Harrison said.
I nodded and looked back up Mariposa into the darkness where my house either did or didn’t stand any longer.
“You want to drive up, take a look?” Harrison asked.
I shook my head.
“Whether it is or isn’t there, I have a feeling it’s already been drawn on Danny Fisher’s map.”
A few wisps of flame suddenly flared up in the darkness and then just as quickly died.
“Maybe everything has.”
18
It was nearing ten o’clock when Harrison finished attaching the mike and transmitter. We were two blocks from the Ralph’s, on a side street next to the 110 freeway. Three teams from tactical were already in position in unmarked cars within eyesight of the parking lot where I was supposed to pick Lopez up.
“This is a line-of-sight mike. You go anywhere we can’t see you, we won’t hear you,” Harrison said.
“He’s due in the parking lot in ten minutes. You should go,” Chavez said.
I nodded and started walking over to the squad with the chief and Harrison in tow.
“The smallest thing doesn’t feel r
ight, you call us in,” Chavez said.
I looked at Chavez and smiled. “Yes, Dad.”
“Lopez gets out of his car, walks up to your passenger side, and puts his hands over his head. You get out and cuff him, that’s the deal. He knows it, anything different . . .”
“I call you in.”
“And get the hell out of there,” Chavez said.
“He’s not a killer.”
“Humor me,” Chavez said.
I smiled at him. “I always do.”
Chavez drew a heavy breath, just as he had on every call we had made together for the last twenty years. The only difference was now I could see the cost of those breaths in the deep worry lines in his face, the graying of his hair, and the doubt that now resided just under the surface of his eyes where years before there had been only confidence.
“Remember, he walks to the passenger side, hands above his head,” Chavez said.
“I remember,” I said.
Chavez stood motionless for a moment as if searching for a reason to call it off, then nodded and walked away. I got in the squad car and Harrison stepped up next to the passenger window.
“You get the photograph out of my box of things?” I asked.
Harrison nodded and handed me the small photograph of my father I had taken from my brother’s apartment.
“If Lopez recognizes him, that’s it,” I said.
“It’s an old picture. You said it yourself, you might not recognize your father if he passed you on the street.”
“Unless we find that surveillance tape from the Western Union office, it’s all we have.”
“I imagine that tape doesn’t exist anymore,” Harrison said.
“Then I hope Lopez says he’s never seen this man in his life,” I said.
I pulled out onto Figueroa and started driving the two blocks south to Ralph’s. There were no Gaps or Starbucks along this stretch of road. Late-night worshippers from a botanica, the men in their best jeans and boots and the women in fresh white dresses, spilled onto the sidewalk. The smoke from a taco stand filled the air with the sweet scent of grilled chicken spiced with lime and peppers. This was the competing turf of two Hispanic street gangs. Graffiti tagged buildings and street signs. Every young man walking the street carefully watched me pass with the practiced eye of a combat soldier whose survival depended on his ability to see and understand everything around him.
“Test your mike,” Harrison said into my earpiece.
“Do we know what kind of car he’ll be in?” I asked.
“The mother wasn’t sure.”
The parking lot of the grocery store was less than half filled, cars spread randomly throughout. I turned into the lot and pulled over to the southern corner and waited. A few shoppers were pushing carts of groceries to their cars. Several young men who I imagined were gang members stood in the shadows next to the store, keeping an eye on their turf. A rusty van parked half a dozen spaces away from me was the closest vehicle. Metro rail crossing gates stood open on the side street just behind the store.
I checked my watch. Lopez should be pulling up within the next five minutes.
“There’s a car pulling in,” Harrison said. “A brown Ford, single male Hispanic driving.”
I followed it in my mirror as it passed behind me and continued on toward the front of the store.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
I looked around for the backup vehicles carrying our tactical teams. I made one parked across Figueroa. The second was in an alley directly across from me at the corner of an apartment building.
“Where’s the third unit?” I asked.
“The north end of the parking lot,” Harrison said.
The gates on the metro rail began to close and the warning bells began chiming.
“There’s a train coming,” I said.
“Say again,” Harrison said.
“A train.”
“Did you say train?”
“Yes.”
The rumble of the approaching engine became audible over the clanging of the warning bells.
“Can you hear me over that?” I asked.
“Say again,” Harrison said.
The train sounded its horn as it approached the intersection.
“Are you getting this?” I said.
Harrison didn’t respond.
“Can you . . .” I started to say, then I saw movement in my rearview mirror. He appeared to be Hispanic, and was carrying a small brown paper bag at his side.
The train sounded its horn, blocking out all other sound, and the ground began to shake ever so slightly.
“I got movement behind me,” I said, though I couldn’t hear my own words.
The figure walked around the side of my car and stopped ten feet from my passenger window. In the darkness I could barely make out his features, but I could see enough to know it was Lopez. His lips moved but I couldn’t hear the words over the sound of the train’s horn.
“Put down the paper bag,” I said as I stepped out of the squad with my hand on my Glock.
Lopez shook his head as if he didn’t hear me. I pointed to the bag in his hand.
“Put it down and raise your hands,” I said.
He nodded and I saw the flash of a smile. He started to bend over to put the bag down when the doors of the rusty van twenty feet away flew open and I saw dark uniformed figures rushing out.
“No,” I yelled, but Lopez was already reacting.
“Drop to the ground,” I shouted just as the train sounded its horn again.
Lopez glanced at me and began to turn toward the figures pouring out of the van. As he turned the paper bag fell out of his right hand and I saw the shine of silver.
“No,” I started to yell when the first muzzle flash erupted in the darkness, followed quickly by three more. Lopez stood motionless for a brief second, then collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.
The sound of the train passed and I heard a mockingbird shriek in the distance. The odor of spent gunpowder hung in the air. One of the LAPD SWAT team approached Lopez on the ground with his weapon raised to the shoulder, ready to fire. I stepped around the back of my squad holding my badge out yelling, “Police, I’m police!”
“Clear!” yelled the lead man standing over Lopez.
On the pavement a few feet from Lopez was the silver can of beer he had been holding in his hand inside the paper bag. I rushed over to Lopez as the screech of tires seemed to come from every direction.
“We need a paramedic,” I yelled, forgetting that I was wired.
Our tactical teams rushed up and surrounded us with their weapons drawn, not exactly sure what had just gone down. Within seconds of their arrival more LAPD units began pouring into the parking lot.
I heard someone say, “A beer, a goddamn beer.”
Another voice said, “I saw a gun.”
Lopez was lying on his back, one of his legs bent at the knee underneath him. His eyes held a look of astonishment, staring straight up toward the sky. On the front of his blue shirt four circular bloodstains were growing into one larger stain. I quickly patted him down. There was no weapon, no phone, not even keys in a pants pocket.
“Can you hear me?” I asked him.
He took a short, clipped breath and his eyes focused on my face.
“Do you remember the tape the policeman took from you?”
He blinked and I saw something approaching recognition in his eyes.
“Tell me what was on it,” I said.
His chest heaved as he struggled to take a breath. I reached over and took hold of his hand.
“You’re going to be okay. Do you understand?” I said.
Lopez’s grip tightened ever so slightly around my hand. His eyes found mine and instantly I knew he understood I was lying to him.
“Did the officer who took the tape give you a name?” I asked.
His lips moved but he didn’t make a sound. Then I felt one of his fingers gent
ly tap my hand.
“Pow . . .” he whispered. “Pow . . . l . . . l.”
He silently mouthed the name again, then his fingers gently lost all tension in my hand.
“Powell?” I said to him.
His eyes struggled to focus before darting upward and staring at the sky. I put my fingers on his neck to feel for the rhythm of his pulse, but there was only stillness.
“We need a paramedic now,” I yelled.
I quickly placed my hands on his chest and began to put my weight into the compressions.
“Step away, Officer,” a voice said from behind me.
“We need a paramedic!” I yelled.
“Step away now, Officer.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Harrison step through the tactical team that surrounded me and kneel next to Lopez’s head.
“I’m not getting a pulse,” I said.
Harrison placed a hand on Lopez’s neck as I continued compressions. After a moment he looked at me and shook his head. “There’s too much damage.”
I did two more compressions then stopped. Lopez’s entire shirtfront was covered in blood.
“Step away now,” said the same voice.
I turned and looked at the source of the voice, a man about fifty, dark suit, crisp white shirt, blue tie, a nickel-plated 9mm in a speed holster on his belt that matched the color of his hair.
“I’m Lieutenant Pearce, Robbery Homicide. This is our scene,” he said. “I have paramedics on the way.”
I rose to my feet and started toward him but Chief Chavez stepped between us.
“You’re goddamn right it’s your scene,” I said. “Your men just killed a man armed with a can of beer. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Alex,” Chief Chavez said, his eyes catching mine just long enough to break the spell of the violence that had erupted. “Walk away,” he said softly. “Just walk away.”
I turned and looked at the LAPD SWAT team that had done the shooting. Three were huddled together in conversation; the fourth was sitting in the open door of the van, staring straight ahead, smoking a cigarette.
“His mother trusted us,” I said, but none of them so much as looked in my direction. In their minds they had just gunned down a cop killer.
Chavez gently squeezed my arm and I turned and looked at him.
