UNSEEN: THE BURNING

by Nancy Holder

  Of course, what really happened, she thought, might be that he really committed the murder.

  But something in Angel’s voice prevented her from expressing that thought. He seemed to believe in the man’s innocence.

  So she kept her opinion to herself—with some difficulty, as it wasn’t her normal way of doing things—and went to the library.

  Where she found absolutely nothing that looked like it might help. The L.A. Times website only seemed to have certain articles in its archive, or else she hadn’t thought of the correct terms to look up; besides, what she was looking for might easily be a tiny mention of something that wouldn’t make it there. So she paged through the library’s microfilmed archives.

  There had been a sale on pashmina at Nordstrom’s that day, it turned out. Had she known about that she might have harangued Angel for something resembling a paycheck. But it was old news now, weeks old. She tried to ignore the ads and focus on the articles.

  But she didn’t know what she was looking for. There was a brief report in the crime section of four officers arresting Rojelio Flores for the murder of a Russian man named Mikhail Nokivov, who had been in the U.S. on a six-month visa for a little more than two years. Meaning that Nokivov had been in the country illegally for eighteen months. But that was all it said.

  She decided she needed a break; also something to drink. The library was a dusty, musty place, and she had always harbored a suspicion that she was allergic to dust. Sighing, she pushed her chair away from the terminal, and stood, heading for the Library Café, out the main doors and down a walkway from the main library proper.

  She pushed open the glass door to the café, and the smell of coffee wafted over her. A steamer was cussshing milk for somebody’s latte, and the luscious fragrance of chocolate enticed her toward the order line.

  She passed next to a table heaped with books. A young man sat there, poring over a big, thick volume and making notes. He was lean and young and looked like a college student, maybe trying to cobble together a term paper at the last minute. He picked at an order of fries as he worked. A soft drink cup was near his elbow, and beside that was a paper plate with a cheeseburger that he had unwrapped but not started on yet.

  He rose to grab a refill on his drink at the same time Cordelia realized there was a variety of bottled water in the refrigerator compartment against the wall. She glanced through the clear glass door, trying to decide if she’d rather have something from it than a fountain drink.

  Reflected in the glass, a thin girl in a baggy denim shirt got up from a nearby chair. She looked this way and that, but didn’t seem to notice Cordelia watching her in the door. When she was convinced she was unnoticed, she swooped past the student’s table, snatched the burger, then kept walking quickly out the exit.

  At first, Cordelia was appalled. That poor guy was going to come back to his table to find his dinner gone and no clue where it went. But almost immediately, her feeling turned to concern. If that girl is reduced to stealing food, how could she be surviving? And why is she stealing? That’s just wrong.

  I’m not getting anything done here, she decided. She left the line, determined to find the girl, find out what her story was. A person ought to be able to have a snack at the cafeteria without losing his food. Anyway, eating that stuff is terrible for her skin, she thought.

  She went back out of the café. The girl was already out of sight, but the door back into the main library building was just swinging shut. Cordelia ran, yanking it open just in time to see burger thief girl round a corner. Cordelia gave chase.

  The girl had taken the turn to the right, which led to a long escalator down. Cordelia stopped at the top, looking down. The girl was just getting off at the bottom. Cordelia pushed past a patron and descended as well, losing track of her quarry but hey, dead end, right?

  But when she got to the bottom, she saw that there was a door beneath the escalators with an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign on it. Cordelia pulled it open.

  Behind it was another corridor. The girl was out of sight, but there didn’t seem to be many places she could have gone. Cordelia could see six doors from here, staggered on both sides along the wall. This is a lot of effort, she thought. It must exhaust Angel to chase after evildoers all night long.

  She briefly considered giving up and just heading back to her apartment. But she had come this far, so she didn’t want to turn back now. Besides, as unusual as this sort of behavior might be for her, she knew it was standard fare for Angel, and she kind of liked the crusading avenger bit. As long as this basement doesn’t get too grungy.

  She pushed open the door number one.

  Whoah, Giles heaven.

  It led into a room filled with shelves, and on the shelves were books. Old books, with ragged edges, broken spines, loose pages hanging out. This looked like where the books went to die. They were probably volumes that had come out of circulation and were waiting for their ultimate destination. The air was thick with the musty smell of them.

  At the back of the silent room Cordelia heard a scraping noise. Moving swiftly but cautiously, she made her way to the back of the room, behind the shelves of doomed books.

  A sheet of plywood, maybe three feet square, leaned against the wall. It looked like it had been there for decades. But Cordelia could see that, although it had once been nailed into the wall, the nails were not in line with the holes anymore. The wood was just standing there.

  She took a deep breath and pulled it away from the wall. A dark hole had been cut into the wall itself, almost like a tunnel opening. Cordelia immediately regretted having come this far, because it made turning away now so much harder to do.

  It’s just a girl with a stolen cheeseburger, she thought. No business of mine.

  But deep down, she knew she had already made it her business by witnessing the theft in the first place, and by following the girl. First thing, when I get home, she thought, a loooong shower. She quietly pushed the plywood aside, steeled herself, and ducked down, down, down into the rabbit hole.

  The opening was ragged, and boards and nails tugged at her clothes. With her job, she kept up on her tetanus shots, but there was nothing she could take for cobwebs. There weren’t many of those, however, just tatters—further evidence that the girl had taken this route as well.

  Cordelia could barely see in front of her face. But there was air ahead, cooler air that she could feel on her cheeks. So the tunnel grew wider somewhere, not so close and stuffy. She took some comfort in that and kept going.

  For the first fifteen steps she had to walk doubled over, one hand in front of her and the other measuring the ceiling height so she didn’t bump her head.

  But after that, she came into the open area. There was only the faintest light seeping in from the hole in the wall behind her, but it was enough to let her see that she was in another hallway much like the one she had been in before. This one was apparently in some part of the building long since walled off and unused. The age of it was apparent even in the dark—the style of the few doors she could see, the hardware, even the exposed electrical conduit and plumbing pipes running the length of the ceiling were outdated.

  If she had been peering back the way she had come, instead of into the gloom before her, she might have seen the girls creeping up on her.

  Suddenly there were four, no, six hands on her.

  They clutched at her arms, her hips, clawed her cheek. She let out a yelp and tried to spin, batting at the grasping hands.

  In the dim light she could see that they were all younger than her, all girls. Four of them. The one she had been following hung back, while the other three had come up on her in the dark.

  “What are you doing?” Cordelia demanded, her heart hammering. She shook herself free of their grips. Why had she done this? She was no policewoman. That guy’s dinner should have been his own concern. Now she was here in a dark tunnel, surrounded by who knew what kind of girls. Would they want her purse and what little money she owne
d? “You just about scared the life out of me!” she blustered.

  “Why are you in here?” one of the girls responded. She was completely Gothed out, down to the black lipstick and nails. “You following us?”

  “No!” Cordelia insisted. “Well, yes. I was following you.” She pointed at the girl in the oversized blue shirt. The girl flushed. “I saw her steal someone’s food.”

  “So,” the blue-shirt girl asked. “You a cop? You’re not library security, we know all them.”

  “No, I’m not the police,” Cordelia replied. “I don’t really know why I followed you. I just saw you doing something wrong, and thought someone should try to stop you.”

  “She’s a good Samaritan,” another girl snapped. She was the tallest of the lot, almost as tall as Cordelia, and probably thirty pounds heavier, solidly built. Her red hair was wild, uncombed, and matted. She wore a tight, ripped T-shirt, torn jeans, and heavy-soled Doc Martens. The glint in her eye looked like madness. In her fist was a sharp-edged kitchen knife. “But we got no problem cuttin’ you up, Samaritan or no.”

  The other girls glowered at her and Cordelia felt a flash of panic. “I’d have a problem with that,” Cordelia said sharply. Ha, no joke. “Look, I know when I’m not wanted. Although, to be perfectly honest, I don’t have a lot of personal experience with the feeling.”

  The girl with the knife shifted her weight impatiently. Denim shirt ticked her glance at the girl beside her, who took a breath. She was nervous. That made Cordelia more nervous.

  She kept that emotion to herself, however, and simply shrugged. “But I’ve made others feel that way often enough, so I’ve seen what it’s like. And I can tell I’m not wanted here. So I’ll just go back upstairs, and—”

  “Wait,” the girl in the denim shirt said, stepping forward. A couple of the other girls moved to let her through. “We could maybe use her.”

  “What for?” the bigger girl asked.

  “I’m hungry,” blue shirt said. “You’re hungry. Maybe she’s got money.”

  “Not much,” Cordelia offered. She tried for a little smile. She had no idea if she got anywhere near one. Her voice was still sharp, and she was sorry about that. But she was having trouble controlling her tone of voice. Also, her desire to scream for help.

  “Enough to buy us a meal?”

  “How many are there?” Cordelia asked. “And we’re not talking about Morton’s or anything, right?” She allowed herself to relax, just a little. If they wanted her to buy them food, then chances were they weren’t really planning to just steal her wallet and bury her corpse. Maybe they were runaways or something, but perhaps not truly criminals.

  Except when it comes to burgers.

  The girl looked taken aback. So did a couple of the others. “You’d really buy us food, even after we scared you? I just don’t think anyone has ever done anything like that for me.”

  “What about your parents?” Cordelia asked. “I’m sure they—”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Big Red interrupted. “I had Kayley’s parents right here right now, I’d slit both their throats in a heartbeat.”

  “How very . . . supportive of you,” Cordelia managed faintly. “Kayley’s lucky that she has a friend who’s so levelheaded.”

  “You think we’re all nuts?”

  “I don’t know you well enough to have an opinion,” Cordelia replied. But inside, she was thinking, Is there any doubt? “My offer still stands, Kayley. If you’re hungry, or if there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know.” She knew that, left on her own, she’d have a pretty hard time finding her way back out of this maze. But if they took her out to buy them a meal, she could learn the way. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life underground, and the whole pale, sallow look was really Angel’s thing.

  “We’re all pretty much starving,” Kayley said. She toyed with a gold choker around her neck with the letter K in the center of it. “I bagged that guy’s burger but it wouldn’t go very far split eight ways.”

  “There are eight of you down here?”

  “Kayley,” Big Red warned.

  “But she said she’ll feed us, Pat.”

  Pat looked Cordelia in the eye. She tucked the knife away someplace, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a matchbook. She struck the match, and in the dim light it seemed to flare like the sun. “You’ll really buy food for all eight of us? And not try to make any trouble for us?” She touched the match to the cigarette and inhaled, causing the end to glow.

  Cordelia mentally added up the money she carried. “Nothing fancy,” she said. “But I could treat for burgers and fries.”

  “Good enough for us,” Pat said, blowing a stream of smoke. “Let’s go, guys. Dinner’s on this chick.”

  Chapter 5

  ROJELIO FLORES WAS HELD AT THE 77TH STREET Regional Police Headquarters, a low, sprawling structure facing Broadway, in the temporary detention facility there. He was being held without bail because of the nature of his crime and, according to Isabel, the incompetence of his court-appointed attorney.

  Angel visited said attorney, whose name was Greg Preston, at his home on Glendale Boulevard. His house was a small adobe bungalow, nothing to write home about. He may not be a good lawyer, Angel thought, but at least he’s not getting rich by being a bad one.

  Angel rang Preston’s doorbell until he came to the door. He opened it a crack and peered out. He was overweight and ruddy-faced, with stubbled cheeks and blond hair in disarray.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Preston? I need to see you about one of your clients, Rojelio Flores. May I come in?” Angel asked.

  “No,” Preston snapped. “It’s the middle of the freakin’ night. You want to talk about a client, call my office. For that matter, unless you’re a family member don’t even do that.”

  “It’s just a little after ten,” Angel argued. “And it’s very important.” He shoved a business card into Preston’s hand. “I’m a private investigator. I may have evidence that he’s been framed. And if he is being framed, the prime suspects would be the LAPD officers who arrested him.”

  Preston mulled that over for a moment. Angel thought he knew what was going on in his lawyer’s mind. He was weighing the inconvenience of this nighttime visit against the possibility of actually doing some good for one of his clients—and maybe even turning an open and shut murder rap into front page news.

  If he was an ambitious man—and most people who made the effort to get through law school were—then he would see that this could be a way to get some notice from the big private firms. This case could be a ticket to the big leagues.

  Preston opened the door. He was wearing a tattered plaid robe over a white undershirt and boxer shorts. The undershirt may once have covered his pendulous stomach, but no longer.

  “Come on in, Mr. Angel. I was, uhh, reviewing some briefs.”

  More like snoozing in them. “Just Angel is fine.”

  Preston flipped a switch and an overhead light came on, illuminating a living room cluttered with bottles and cans, pizza boxes and several weeks’ worth of newspapers. “Excuse the mess,” Preston said. “Maid’s year off.”

  “Doesn’t bother me,” Angel replied. “You remember who Flores is?”

  “Murder case. Killed a suspected drug dealer. Cops caught him on the scene with the gun in his hand.” He picked up a pizza box and held it for a moment, looking for another place to put it. He set it back down in its original spot. “Pretty open and shut. What’s your new evidence?”

  “His family says he didn’t do it.”

  Preston brayed a laugh. “And you’re a private investigator? You get your license through the mail from the back of a comic book?”

  He opened the pizza box and picked up a slice, offering the other slice to Angel. Angel demurred, and the guy went to town.

  Angel crossed his arms and leaned against a table, catching a pile of junk mail as it threatened to tumble to the floor. “I know it’s not much to go on. But t
here are strange things going on in that house, and they make me believe his wife and son. I can’t explain any better than that.”

  Preston threw down the piece of pizza and shut the lid. He faced his visitor. “Then I’m sorry I let you wake me out of a pleasant dream, Angel. I was kicking Johnny Cochran’s butt on cross.”

  “Look, Preston—”

  “Strange goings-on like what?” the man said, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. “Wife being threatened? Phone calls where no one speaks, then hangs up?”

  “Stranger,” Angel said. He paused. “It might be possession.”

  “Being nine-tenths of the law,” Preston said. When Angel said nothing, he tried again. “Possession of what, a deadly weapon? Contraband?”

  “Occult possession,” Angel replied.

  He stared at Angel. “You’re kidding. You woke me up because you watched The Exorcist on the late show? Man, that’s it. I’m calling the cops.”

  “Look,” Angel said. “I lied to Mrs. Flores. Well, I didn’t lie, exactly, but I let her think something that wasn’t true.”

  “Now you think this looks like a confession booth?”

  “She thinks I work with you. She thinks you’re finally taking some steps to get her husband freed.”

  Preston rubbed his eye sleepily with one fist. “Okay, and telling me that is supposed to make me trust you? Now I think you’re insane and a liar.”

  “So you don’t believe in possession?”

  “I’m a rational man.”

  “How about poltergeists? Demons? Vampires?”

  “Shouldn’t you be writing for one of those supermarket tabloids?” Preston asked.

  “I can think of one way to convince you,” Angel said. “But you won’t like it.”

  “Try me.”

  Angel stood in front of the lawyer and willed the change to come over him. His forehead became thick, his teeth lengthened, his eyes narrowed. He was unmistakably a vampire. He held it for a moment, and then changed back.