by Dianne Emley
Something made her look up. She saw Officer Alex Caspers peering at her over the top of the adjoining cubicle.
“Pretty fucked up, huh?”
“What’s that?”
“Finding Frank Lynde’s daughter nude and cut up.”
“Where d’ya hear that?”
“Come on…” He made a sucking noise with his teeth. “Shame. She was real good lookin’. Tall, like you.”
He was giving her the hungry-eye look like he’d done earlier that morning. She would like nothing better than for him to vacate the area and the planet, but she was intrigued.
“Did you know her?”
“Met her at the last service awards luncheon or whatever they call it. Frank got an award for twenty-five years on the force. He introduced Frankie to me. Real stand-up guy, Frank. I called Frankie at her precinct, but she and I couldn’t find a time to connect.”
I wonder why.
“I hear she was pretty wild.”
Vining gave the woman credit for some discretion in her men. “We don’t know for sure it’s her. Whoever it is, that’s a hell of a way to talk about the dead. A little respect?”
“How is that being disrespectful? She knew she was a piece of ass and liked hearing it.”
Vining shook her head and stood. On her way to get coffee, Caspers answered his phone.
“Hey, peckerhead. You coming to the party tonight?”
She went to the coffee station on a table at the rear of the suite and pulled a Styrofoam cup from the stack. There was tension in the air. The calm before the storm. The investigation was in the works, but Vining was not privy to details. She was hanging around, waiting to be given something to do, as if it truly was her first day on the job. Kissick had returned and was busy on the phone. She knew he was waiting for Detective Schuyler to come up from Hollywood LAPD with materials from his missing person investigation. Ruiz was still with Frank Lynde off-site, waiting out the time until they had an official I.D. on the body.
She knew Lynde already suspected the worst. Adult women don’t disappear of their own volition.
“But we don’t run away.”
The notification would be a strange relief for Lynde. It would end his time in purgatory.
Vining thought of the calls made to her family after she had been attacked, that ringing phone dreaded by loved ones of police officers. Kissick had made them, calling Vining’s mother and her ex-husband, Wes.
“Nan’s been hurt on the job. She’s alive but her condition is serious.”
It was a white lie. Her condition had been critical.
Emily claimed to know the moment of Vining’s attack. She was reading by the pool at her father’s house when she felt coldness in her extremities and couldn’t breathe.
After Vining had been resuscitated, she’d lain in a coma for three days.
Vining believed she wasn’t T. B. Mann’s first victim. The belief had no basis in fact, but she couldn’t shake that deep-in-her-bones instinct. He had seemed so assured, intentionally coming close to getting caught. They had found a police radio scanner in the house on El Alisal Road. He had tracked her movements and the status of her backup. There had been a realtor’s open house in that location the weekend before Vining was attacked. Kissick, who had handled the investigation, speculated that Vining’s assailant entered the house then and unlocked a window through which he later entered. Vining had worked patrol in that neighborhood on Sundays for several weeks, picking up overtime. T. B. Mann couldn’t be positive that Vining would be the officer to respond to his call, but it was likely to be her. It was Vining’s theory that he had patiently stalked her, maybe for months, working out the timing, location, and circumstances until all the elements converged in that one brilliant and catastrophic moment.
Had he pressed the envelope farther with Lynde?
She couldn’t jump to conclusions. That sort of thinking made for a shoddy investigation. She had to keep her mind open. Otherwise, Kissick and Early would spot it and she would be working on residential burglaries.
During her long months of recuperation, Vining had researched female law enforcement officers in the United States who had been killed on duty. There had been twenty-six over the past ten years. Most deaths had occurred in major metropolitan areas. Made sense. Big-city police forces tended to have female officers.
A guy on parole for murder shot one, a New York City cop, with her own gun while she was at the scene of a domestic violence incident. Another was shot during a bank robbery in Washington, D.C. One was stabbed in a drug sting gone bad outside Austin, Texas. Two were killed responding to calls regarding suspicious circumstances. Four were killed while arresting a suspect. Three were killed during routine traffic stops. Two were murdered when their home problems followed them to work, one in Atlanta by a husband and one outside San Diego by a boyfriend. Vining couldn’t see how women who could kick butt in their work lives had let that happen. Love. Killed because of love.
Eleven died in vehicular accidents, the number one killer of police officers.
Then there was Johnna Alwin of the Tucson Police Department. The memorial page on the TPD Web site said she had been ambushed and murdered and little else. Vining called the TPD and asked to speak to the lead investigator. She was put through to Lieutenant Owen Donahue. She told a half-truth, saying she was investigating an ambush of a Pasadena, California, police officer who was brutally attacked but survived. She was searching for similar crimes, trying to determine if the assault was isolated or if they were looking at a serial killer.
Donahue was grudgingly accommodating. Alwin was a detective working undercover to bust a doctor, an internist, who was selling restricted prescription drugs out of his office. Three years ago on a Sunday afternoon in January, Alwin received a call from her informant, Jesse Cuba, a janitor in the doctor’s building, saying he had information. It was Alwin’s day off, but she called the watch commander and reported that Cuba wanted to meet her in the medical building where he worked. Cuba was a heroin addict on parole for possession. Alwin had met him on the fly and alone before and considered him harmless.
When Alwin didn’t return, a patrol car was sent out. The officers found her in a storage closet in the basement. She’d been stabbed seventeen times.
Donahue told Vining that he wouldn’t be much help to her because they’d solved Alwin’s murder. Jesse Cuba was found dead of a heroin overdose in the seedy motel room he rented by the week. In his room, police found Alwin’s purse and jewelry. The purse had Alwin’s blood on it. Other suspects didn’t pan out. Case closed. Donahue wished her well with her investigation.
Vining hung up. There was no reason for her to second-guess Tucson’s investigation, but something about the case bothered her.
Two years later, Vining was stabbed responding to a suspicious circumstances call reported by a man who identified himself as a realtor watching over 835 El Alisal Road while the owner was away.
A year after that, Officer Frankie Lynde was murdered.
And Vining had a panic attack at the scene.
She stood by the coffeemaker, sipping the burnt brew that powdered creamer and sugar did nothing to improve. She saw Lieutenant George Beltran in Early’s office. He glanced at her and she felt certain they were talking about her. Then Kissick joined them.
She downed the rest of the coffee, tossed the cup, and was returning to her desk when Beltran caught up with her on his way out.
He shook her hand. “Hey, Nan. How are you? Good to have you back.” Beltran had wavy dark hair and a thick mustache that were starting to show gray. He was medium height and naturally slender in a way that made him look taller than he was. He had a broad smile and an easy manner. He handled the media well and consequently served as the PPD’s liaison. He enjoyed the spotlight.
“I’m good, Lieutenant. Nice to be back. Thanks.”
It was a pleasant interchange but it put her on edge. Before she reached her desk, Kissick stuck his head out the door o
f Early’s office and asked her to come in.
“Have a seat,” Early said.
Kissick was leaning against the wall beside the windows.
Detective Sergeants Cho and Taylor weren’t there. Vining pulled a chair from in front of Taylor’s desk and sat.
“Coroner’s office called,” Early began. “It’s Frankie Lynde. Preliminary cause of death was the slit throat. She bled out someplace else before he dumped her in the arroyo.”
Vining took in the news and said nothing.
“Ruiz is on his way in,” Kissick said. “He told Frank Lynde the news. They’d gone for a drink and Ruiz had just brought him home when I called.”
As if on cue, Ruiz arrived. His jacket was off, his tie was loosened, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He plopped into a chair, set his elbows against his knees, and rubbed his face with both hands. After a second, he sat up and laced his palms over his bald head.
“That was tough. I never want to do that again.”
“How’d he take it?” Kissick asked.
“How would you take it?” Ruiz gazed out the window at the bright glare reflecting off the haze. “I told him how you’ll never lose the one you love if you love the one you’ve lost. The usual shtick. I had always believed that was true, each time I made a notification call to a grieving next of kin. I thought I was giving them comfort. Today I realized it’s total bullshit. Empty words to fill the silence. There’s nothing but silence left. A big, gaping hole where a life used to be.”
Vining reflected that Ruiz was ever pompous. He had been working Homicide for barely a year and had worked just three cases on which Kissick had been the lead investigator. Still, his distress was real and touched her heart. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. He patted her fingertips and gave her a nod.
Early’s phone rang. “I’ll send someone down.” She looked at Kissick. “Detective Schuyler from LAPD is here. A lieutenant from their homicide desk is here, too.”
“You called Schuyler before you had a positive I.D.?” Ruiz’s moment had passed and his hard edges returned.
“We had a high degree of confidence it was Frankie Lynde,” Early said. “The clock’s ticking, Ruiz.”
“They sent a lieutenant from Homicide? They think the little-city cops need help from the big-city cops?” Kissick stood. “I’ll get them.”
Ruiz and Vining stood as well.
Early said, “Vining. Hold up a second. Shut the door. Sit down.”
S E V E N
V INING SAT IN THE CHAIR SHE’D JUST VACATED.
Early got right to the point. “This case may be too close to home for you.”
“I disagree.” She knew her comeback was too fast. Kissick must have told Early about her episode at the arroyo. Now Lieutenant Beltran knew, too. She wondered what Kissick had seen. At worst, he saw her struggling to breathe. He might have deduced anxiety, even panic. Okay. But she’d overcome it.
“Here’s my dilemma.” Early folded her hands on the desk. “I’m seeing you on the witness stand, undergoing cross-examination, and I’m seeing the million ways a defense attorney could discredit your testimony.”
“Is this a preview of the rest of my career here, my colleagues treating me like damaged goods?”
“My number one concern is managing this case. A lot of attention will be focused on us. I have to look at the whole enchilada, from start to finish.”
“Sarge, you know I’m one of the best you have. I’m a better interviewer, I work longer hours, and I’m more thorough than anyone else I’ve seen on the second floor other than Kissick. And I never complain.”
“What about when the media finds out you’re working the Lynde case? You’re a minor celebrity. Your fifteen minutes haven’t ended yet. They’ll land on it like a bad smell. We’re already going to have our hands full.”
This is what it’s come down to, Vining thought.
She flashed back to that June afternoon nearly a year ago.
She had been on patrol in uniform, working the Sunday overtime gig she’d been lucky enough to land for the past few weeks. It worked out especially well on the weekends that Emily was with her dad. Vining was the only officer patrolling Section One, the lowest crime area of the city. The service calls usually involved dogs barking too long, stereos that were too loud, or burglar alarms accidentally set off by the household help. The residents there had no clue about what real crime was except for the often-told tale of the home invasion robbery some years ago that had degenerated into rape and murder.
Vining had spent an hour parked in the shade of a camphor tree near a four-way stop, handing out moving violations to drivers doing the California roll through the intersection. She was sweating beneath the Kevlar vest and regulation white, crew neck T-shirt she was wearing under her short-sleeved summer uniform shirt.
At five o’clock, a suspicious circumstances call came in. A realtor was checking on a house for the absent owner and found a window open that he was certain he’d left closed. The house was three blocks from Vining. The call would be her last for the day. Her shift ended in half an hour and then she had a couple of days off.
Vining broadcast, “One Lincoln twenty-one. I can respond from Fillmore and Los Robles.”
Residents in the city’s affluent neighborhoods were often looking out windows and finding suspicious goings-on. She didn’t fault them. But she’d responded to calls where the person who’d made them nervous was a caterer checking on a delivery for a backyard wedding or a couple of nonwhite, non-Asian kids sitting on a retaining wall, taking a break while walking from their public school to the bus stop.
The house at 835 El Alisal was a two-story colonial like many in the area, built early last century. It was an upscale, middle-American neighborhood where happy sitcom families lived. In the neighborhood was the house that Beaver Cleaver entered during the opening credits of Leave It to Beaver.
The “For Sale” sign of Dale David, a busy realtor in town, was stuck into the sprawling front lawn at 835. A second placard that said “In Escrow” was perched on top. Not surprising. These homes never stayed on the market for long.
Vining radioed that she was on-scene and didn’t need further assistance. She got out of the car.
The front door was open. She rapped hard and noted the solid wood with a pang of envy. The doors in her house were hollow-core and she had always hated the flimsy sound and feel of them.
Standing on the threshold, she announced, “Police.” She knocked again and spoke louder. “Police.”
Not stepping inside and with her hand on her sidearm, she looked around. The floor of narrow oak planks was polished to a high sheen and carpeted with an Oriental runner. Ornate crown and base moldings were throughout. An antique parlor bench was beside a staircase that curved to the right. An elaborate chest of drawers faced it across the entry hallway. To the left was a study or den. A large opening farther down may have led to a living room. At the end of the hall, French doors revealed a patio, a giant magnolia tree, and a pool with blue water. A door was to her immediate right.
Vining had always loved those old houses. They felt solid and dense with history. But that was before such history would torment her and threaten her downfall. That was before her world was turned inside out.
This was odd. Citizens who called the police were usually by the door, counting the minutes. She’d heard of female realtors raped and murdered in houses they were showing, but she’d never heard of a realtor luring a victim to an empty house.
At the sound of rapid footsteps, she pulled her Glock .40 free from its holster and was holding it in front of her when a man walked into the hallway from the dining room.
“Holy moly!” He reared back with his palms facing her.
“Who are you?”
“I called you. I’m…I’m Dale David. The realtor.” He chuckled amiably as he looked at her gun. “Is that necessary?”
She dropped her gun to her side but didn’t holster it, neither did s
he explain.
He had a pleasant, unremarkable face, with dark eyes and pale skin. It would later confirm for her that the worst monsters came in the most benign packages. His thick hair was raven black and looked dyed. He was tall. Vining estimated six feet. He was dressed in what passed for business casual—a pale yellow polo shirt belted into light green chinos. She would later learn the embroidered design on his shirt of a lamb dangling by a ribbon tied around its middle was the logo of Brooks Brothers.
She’d seen Dale David’s placards around town, but had never seen the man. The real Dale David later sent a large basket of indoor plants to Vining’s hospital room. He had been a suspect for less than five minutes, having quickly proved he’d spent the entire day showing properties to a couple who were relocating to the area from Michigan.
When Vining later reflected on that incident, as she would do a million times until she felt she had wrung from it all the substance she could, she realized it was all there in his body language. Most people would be terrified to have a gun aimed at them. This man seemed nervous, but he was acting. Instead of fear at the sight of her weapon, his eyes flashed with excitement. In her probably enhanced memory, Vining saw his pupils dilate.
“Here’s my card.” He indicated that he was going to put his hand into his pocket.
“Hold it right there. I’ll get it. Turn around please.” She began patting him down.
“You’re searching me?”
“The front door was wide open and you weren’t waiting.”
