The Girl Buried in the Woods

by Robert Ellis

  He could hear voices. Male voices.

  He wondered if there were any women on the SIS team. He wasn’t sure of the gender makeup and had never thought to ask. All he knew was that if these voices were coming from the surveillance unit, they were a real long way from being invisible. It sounded like they were in the middle of a heated argument. Matt looked around but didn’t see any cars in the lot or anyone on the lawn, yet the voices were still there and seemed close.

  He got to his feet and shut the car door as quietly as he could manage. Once he thought he had a bead on the direction of the sound, he started across the lawn heading for the grove of pine trees. The voices were getting louder, more heated, but he still couldn’t make out what anyone was saying.

  He stepped underneath the tree branches and, for a moment, switched on the flashlight for a look at the grave. He knelt down and ran his fingers through the soil, thinking of Sophia Ramirez mostly, but Moe Rey, too. He could still see the condition they were in when their bodies were dug out of the earth.

  This is what he had wanted to see tonight. This is what he needed to remember.

  He switched off the light and stood up. Sweeping the branches away, he stepped out onto the lawn and started up the grassy bank. When he reached the top, he gazed over the edge and down the steep hill.

  He could see them.

  Six men standing outside the DMG facility. Despite the darkness, despite the distance, it wasn’t difficult to tell who they were. The three partners were standing beside their cars doing the arguing. The other three had to be their hired guns. They were bigger, meatier, and rougher looking. But even more telling, they were standing off to the side keeping their mouths shut.

  Matt checked behind his back, then gazed across the meadow. He could see the private road from here and followed it with his eyes from the bridge on North Broadway all the way down the railroad tracks to the DMG entrance and substation beyond. He wondered if anyone from SIS was here tonight. It didn’t seem like it. It didn’t feel like it either.

  He turned back to the factory, letting his body and mind quiet down. As he tried to make out what was being said, he realized that their voices were being amplified by the darkness. But it was a false read. The sound was echoing up the ridge through the trees and mixing with the din of distant freeways and the line of jets just south of downtown making their approach into LAX.

  He took a moment to sort through it all. As he strained to filter out the background noise, he thought he could hear Lane Grubb saying how disappointed he was that it had come to this. Something about how Sonny had assured them that there would never be a problem. That there were no real risks involved. Promises had been made that weren’t kept. Then Sonny began shouting that the only problems they had were in Grubb’s head. That everything was going just as they had planned. When Grubb started to push back, Ryan Moore stepped between the two men and told them to go home and chill.

  A freight train started to roll by the substation, wiping out the sounds of the three partners’ voices. While Matt watched, he tried to interpret what he had just heard. What was Grubb’s disappointment? What were the promises Sonny might have made that weren’t kept? But even more, what was the plan, and how could there be no risks?

  As the long train stretched through the cityscape, the argument seemed to end, and all three partners got into their cars. Matt watched them begin to drive off when it occurred to him that he was witnessing something important.

  The three men with guns standing off to the side.

  Matt did a double take. While the three partners were driving off into the night, the three armed goons were ambling back into the building. As Matt added it up, he realized that these men weren’t serving as bodyguards. Whatever they might have been hired to protect was something else and had to be inside the building.

  Matt found the idea astonishing. How could whatever the three partners were doing defy the possibility of blowback? How could these guys not feel like they were in eminent danger?

  It seemed so naive. Or was it some bizarre form of arrogance?

  An image of Joseph Gambini sitting in his prison cell pulling strings flicked through Matt’s brain, then vanished. He ran across the meadow, jumped into his car, and jacked up the engine. Speeding down the hill and around the curves, he hit the park entrance, pulled to a screeching stop, and looked through the trees toward the bridge and the private road below.

  And then he waited.

  THIRTY-ONE

  It only took a few minutes before the bursts of light began to cut through the tree branches and wash across the interior of the car. Looking down the private road, he saw the three pairs of headlights crest the hill and begin approaching the bridge.

  Matt eased his car a few feet forward to open up the view. He watched Sonny Daniels come over the rise first, shoot beneath the bridge, and vanish down Baker Street. It looked like Ryan Moore was following Sonny out in his BMW. But Matt was waiting for car number three—the one lagging behind. Lane Grubb in the black Audi.

  He watched Grubb reach the bridge and pass underneath. Even though the moment was brief, Matt could see that he was on the phone screaming at somebody. Like everybody else who uses their cell phone behind the wheel, he’d be an easy follow—an easy target—because of the distraction.

  Matt pulled out onto North Broadway and gunned it. Bringing the car up to seventy, then eighty, and even ninety miles an hour, he looked outside his window and could see Grubb cruising down the road on the other side of the train tracks. That long freight train had caught up to them, moving in and out of Matt’s line of vision. But even more frustrating, once he cut deeper into Chinatown, he had to slow down, with his view of Grubb becoming totally obscured by buildings.

  Matt shrugged it off because he knew that in the end it wouldn’t matter. If Grubb was heading for a freeway entrance, he’d eventually have to make the turn back onto Broadway. Matt pushed his speed up, ignoring the sneers and shouts of people trying to cross from the sidewalks. When he reached Alpine Street, he spotted a fire hydrant, pulled over, and killed his headlights.

  Within a matter of seconds, he saw Sonny Daniels make the cut onto Broadway. Ryan Moore was right behind him. And then, after a few more minutes, Lane Grubb made an exceedingly wide turn, heading for the freeways as he continued to scream at someone on his cell phone.

  Matt waited a beat, then pushed through the intersection. Even five car lengths back on a dark night, the sleek black Audi R8 was easy enough to keep sight of in a world of dented compact cars, vans, and SUVs. Along the sidewalks here, tents had been pitched by the homeless, and Matt slowed down through two intersections. It didn’t really matter. Once he hit the freeway entrance, he saw Grubb easing over into the left lane heading back to Hollywood.

  The only surprise over the next thirty minutes was when Grubb exited onto Sunset rather than Beachwood Drive. Matt watched him winding his way on surface streets and realized that he wasn’t on his way home. He closed the distance between cars to half a block, then fell back again as Grubb pulled into a lot behind a supermarket and parked in the two spaces at the end of the aisle. Matt waited a few moments, watching Grubb get out of his car with the phone still glued to his ear. When Grubb turned away from the market and started hustling down the street on foot, Matt found a place to park and jogged down the sidewalk.

  He caught a glimpse of Grubb vanishing around the corner. Once he reached the end of the block, he caught another glimpse of Grubb entering a sidewalk café and bar in an alley behind Hollywood and Vine.

  Matt looked around, thinking it over. Without following Grubb inside, it looked like the best view was from across the alley at another café with sidewalk seating and a terrace. Matt rushed across the street and inside the café, choosing a table on the terrace. When a young waitress stopped by, he ordered a double espresso with sugar and pushed the menu aside.

  He watched the waitress walk off, then turned and searched through the crowd of people at the sidewalk tab
les until he found Grubb taking a seat across the street. The man had chosen a table in the shadows off to the side. A table where Matt doubted anyone would notice him.

  Moments passed. Then a waiter stepped over to Grubb’s table with what looked like a frozen bottle of Tito’s vodka and a glass of ice. Matt watched Grubb take a huge pull on the glass, and then another. He appeared upset, worried, and distraught—his hair pushed back and soaked with sweat on what was decidedly a cool night. And he was looking around. At first Matt thought he was eyeing the women seated nearby. But then it occurred to him that Grubb was checking the tables to see who might be watching him. Once he appeared satisfied that no one was spying, he slipped something out of his pocket. A small fold of paper.

  Matt’s double espresso arrived. After a quick sip he looked back across the street. Grubb had rolled up a dollar bill and was snorting lines of white powder at the table. Long lines. Matt watched the man’s body shudder as he wiped the powder away from his nose with his fingers.

  It could have been cocaine. It could have been heroin. It could have been a lot of things. What mattered was that it looked like Lane Grubb had jumped off the edge. The man was beside himself.

  And now he was loaded.

  Grubb refilled his glass from the bottle, taking a sloppy gulp and wiping the vodka dripping down his chin with a napkin.

  Out of his mind loaded.

  Matt couldn’t help being fascinated by what he was witnessing, even if he was the only one watching. This public display occurring in the shadows of a sidewalk café in downtown Hollywood. One of the reasons Matt loved being a detective, one of his most prized reasons, was the opportunity the job offered to study human behavior. To observe the circumstances people may have been dealt or even chosen for themselves, the decisions they made, and then finally the explanations they offered once they were confronted with the truth.

  Grubb snorted another long line of white powder. Unfortunately, his waiter was approaching the table this time and caught him. An animated discussion followed, with Grubb snorting another line despite the man standing over his table. A few moments later, Grubb nodded and waved his hands at the waiter as if apologizing, then seemed to put his stash away and clean things up.

  Matt wanted to get closer. He wanted to be across the street. He pushed his espresso away and looked around for his waitress. As his eyes searched through the crowd of people seated on this side of the street, his heart fluttered in his chest.

  In a world of wolves, distractions could be a real gamble.

  Someone else was watching Grubb tonight. Someone seated at a distance and wanting to remain hidden. Someone waiting in the shadows who looked angry and ready to strike.

  Robert Gambini was in Hollywood.

  THIRTY-TWO

  He knew that he hadn’t been seen. That Gambini had been too wrapped up in the spectacle of Grubb’s public persona to check behind his back. Still, Matt made his way off the terrace and into the café with great care. Once he got his bearings, he pushed open the kitchen door and prepared to identify himself as a police officer. But as he breezed through the room, everyone seemed too busy plating orders of food to notice. Matt spotted the back door, hit the stairs, and sped outside.

  He walked around the block, avoiding the two sidewalk cafés and working his way back to the car. Pulling out of the lot, he found an open space by a fire hydrant with a decent view of Grubb’s Audi. When he checked the cars parked on the side street, he saw Gambini’s black Mercedes in the shadows.

  He checked the clock on the dash and settled back in the seat. And then he waited.

  Grubb didn’t show up for at least an hour, and by then he looked even more wasted. He was trudging up the sidewalk with his head down and appeared to be lost in his own world. Matt reached for the bottle of water in his cup holder, took a short swig, then slid lower in the seat.

  Robert Gambini had just turned the corner and was following Grubb up the sidewalk. He was keeping to the shadows, but he was there. Matt looked at the concentration showing on Gambini’s angular face, the intensity of his dark eyes. Seeing him on the street like this, he appeared stronger than Matt first imagined. Sturdier and more athletic, but also tougher.

  Gambini glanced his way for an instant, and Matt ducked. Peeking over the dashboard, he watched the heroin dealer look away, then turned back to Grubb as he reached his car safely and got the engine started. When the Audi began moving through the lot, Matt turned and saw Gambini getting into his Mercedes.

  It didn’t take much to realize that something was going to happen tonight. That Gambini had every intension of following Grubb home and making some sort of statement. Matt knew that if it came down to a confrontation, Grubb would lose.

  Matt lowered his head as the Audi idled down the street, its monster V10 engine groaning in the night. Once the Mercedes pulled out, Matt waited until both cars reached the corner before easing into the street.

  Grubb was cruising up and down backstreets, probably trying to avoid cops and the possibility of a drunk-driving charge. As he finally reached Franklin and then made the turn up Beachwood Drive, Matt knew that he was heading home and dropped back even farther.

  Cabrera had updated the Chronological Record this afternoon, including the contact information for each partner at DMG after running their plates. Matt had committed their home addresses to memory and knew that Grubb lived on Ledgewood Drive. The roads were narrow, the curves sharp. But within ten minutes, Matt had made his way up the steep hill just below the Hollywood Sign. He spotted Gambini’s Mercedes parked at the curb but didn’t pull over until he reached the top of the ridge two houses up.

  Matt got out of the car, took a quick look around, then started back down the hill on foot.

  Grubb’s place turned out to be a big two-story stucco job with a massive terra-cotta roof. A six-foot wall was meant to keep people out, with redwood gates securing the front walk and a two-car parking area. But tonight, Matt found the front gate cracked open and the outdoor lights shut down.

  He waited a moment, listening. The neighborhood was quiet. Just a dog barking in the distance. A quiet breeze rattling the palm trees above.

  Matt stepped through the gate and eyeballed the property in the gloom. Most of the houses on this street were either built into the air off the ridge and secured with hundred-foot stilt-like pilings or, like Grubb’s place, planted right on the edge. While the views might be remarkable, Matt had always found the houses difficult to look at and often wondered how anyone could feel comfortable living inside. During an earthquake a few years back, he’d seen a house a lot like the one next door break off its pilings and tumble all the way down to the canyon floor. At the time, a record producer had been inside with his girlfriend. It had taken the coyotes a single night to find their bodies. It had taken rescue workers nearly a week to find what remained.

  The picture in his mind was still there. Still crystal clear and very grim.

  He heard something.

  A sound coming from inside the house. Something like glass shattering, but bigger. Maybe a lamp.

  Matt checked the front door. When he found it locked, he worked his way around the side of the house. Once he reached the back and saw all the windows, he stepped around the corner and faded into the shadows.

  Gambini was inside the living room, and it didn’t seem like the meeting was going very well.

  He had Grubb by the shirt collar and was slapping him around with an open right hand. Grubb looked too high to fight back—too weak—and appeared terrorized. He kept trying to force his eyes shut, almost as if he thought Gambini might not really be there if he couldn’t see him. Still, with each hard slap, Grubb’s eyes opened again until it looked like Gambini had become bored. Finally, the heroin dealer took a swing with a closed fist and knocked Grubb down onto the couch.

  Gambini stood over the man, glaring at him. Apparently, Grubb had made a drink before his visitor arrived. Gambini picked up the glass and poured it all over Grubb’
s bruised face. After sweeping everything off the coffee table with a single violent stroke, Gambini sat down in front of his victim and took a few moments to size him up.

  Matt scanned the windows quickly, wondering why he could hear them so clearly. The windows were shut. When he checked the deck, he gazed through the screens and saw the double doors standing wide open.

  “Why are you doing business with my uncle?” Gambini said in a voice so low and rough it sent a chill up Matt’s spine.

  Grubb looked back and seemed confused. Gambini gave him another slap.

  “Why are you in business with my uncle Joseph?” he repeated.

  Grubb shook his head back and forth, stammering. “I don’t know your uncle,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Gambini slapped him again, harder this time. “Did he approach you, or did you and your idiot friends approach him?”

  Grubb was drooling the way users do, his entire body trembling now. “Nobody approached anybody,” he said quickly. “It never happened. Don’t you understand? It’s not real.”

  Gambini hit him again. “Are you trying to placate me? Are you trying to play me, little man? Do you really think you’re gonna get away with this?”

  Grubb tried to speak, but the words weren’t coming out fast enough. Gambini smashed him on the side of the head.

  “Do you really think you can walk into my town and steal my business? Steal my money? Look at you. You’re using your own product. You’re a loser boy.”

  Gambini stood up in disgust, then punched Grubb in the stomach. When he doubled over, Gambini smacked him in the head again. A moment passed, with Grubb groaning and gasping for air. Gambini sat back down on the coffee table.

  “You’re interfering with my business, little man. This is my city. I own it. You need to tell your friends that they’re fools. That there’s no place at the table for them. Not here in LA. It’s time to close up your shop and get out of town.”