The Girl Buried in the Woods

by Robert Ellis

  “Is that what you want?” he said. “Is that why you’re here?”

  She laughed. “Good heavens, no. You’re working with my husband, and I’m a happily married woman. I love Mitch, and I always will.”

  “How did you get in?”

  She laughed again. “I found a spare key in the old shoe by your front door. Where did you think that one up?”

  He smiled at her. He couldn’t help it.

  “What are you drinking?” she asked.

  “Vodka.”

  “May I have a sip?”

  Matt passed over the glass. As she took a sip, her wide-open eyes never left his face. After a second sip she passed the glass back. He glanced at her body wrapped in those tight jeans. She seemed so overwhelmingly beautiful in the dim light.

  “You like looking at me, don’t you,” she whispered.

  A moment passed, and then another.

  “Why are you really here?” he said finally.

  She appeared to need time to think it over. But after a short while, she sat up and moved to the end of the bed, her eyes dancing all over his face.

  “On the news tonight, they said you were kicked off the case.”

  Matt shrugged. “That’s just the party line.”

  “I know,” she said. “Mitch told me what happened.”

  “Then what made you come over?”

  “He couldn’t reach you on the phone. He got worried. He’s got an early meeting with the DA tomorrow and got tied up. I told him I’d drive over.”

  “So he knows you’re here?”

  She met his eyes and nodded. “Of course,” she said. “But I’ve been here for quite a while. I thought you’d come straight home after you and Mitch left the chief’s office. I started to get tired and needed to lie down for a few minutes. I’m sorry for the way it looked when you walked in.”

  He could see the concern on her face. It seemed genuine.

  “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong, Val?”

  Her blue-gray eyes glistened in the darkness, and she lowered her voice. “Mitch thinks you’re in danger.”

  He gave her a long look without saying anything. Then he set down the glass, got off the chair, and sat beside her on the end of the bed.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  She reached for the glass and took another sip. “He thinks you’re being set up.”

  “For what?”

  “He’s not sure. He just said that cops don’t work alone. They always have somebody backing them up. He said that what they’re doing isn’t right. Mitch thinks that the chief might be in on it. That tonight the chief made you think he was giving you a break. But that’s not what it is at all. Tonight, he threw you into the wind.”

  Matt shook his head as he chewed it over. “Why didn’t Mitch say something to me when we left?”

  “He didn’t say anything to me either. He knew how much it would upset me. He just told me that you weren’t really thrown off the case.”

  “Then where is all this other stuff coming from?”

  “He called a defense attorney on your behalf. He wanted his advice.”

  “Who?”

  “Buddy Paladino. Have you ever heard of him?”

  Matt nodded but didn’t respond. He’d heard plenty of things about Buddy Paladino. Paladino was the best defense attorney in Los Angeles. He was the attorney you called when you were hurdling through the air toward the proverbial wall. The attorney you called when it looked like you might run out of tomorrows.

  Matt’s mind surfaced as he felt Val’s arms wrapping around his shoulders and pulling him closer in the darkness. When he turned, he found her staring out the window at those eerie tall buildings poking out of the fog at the other end of the city. Her voice was still low, still not much more than a whisper.

  “Before tonight I would have said you needed a woman, Matthew. Someone to be with. Someone to share your life with. But now, after all this, Mitch is probably right. You need an attorney.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Matt walked past the front desk, down the hall, and around the corner into Burton’s office. It was 7:25 a.m.—early morning after a hideous day and a brutal night’s sleep. As Matt entered, Burton looked up from his desk and appeared relieved to see him.

  “I’ve got a meeting with the DA in five minutes that I can’t get out of,” Burton said. “Walk with me.”

  Matt nodded, relieved himself that Val Burton’s warning had been at the direction of her husband. That beyond the playful banter and whatever troublesome thoughts he may have entertained, Val’s intentions last night had been genuine and righteous. He watched the prosecutor collect his files and grab a coffee cup and then followed him out the door. When they reached the hallway, Burton checked his back before speaking in a voice that wouldn’t carry.

  “Where were you last night? I called and you never picked up. When Val got there, she said she had to wait a couple of hours.”

  Matt met Burton’s gaze. “Gambini’s,” he said. “We spoke. I was in his house and had my phone turned off.”

  “And?”

  “He had a gun. He came back for the cash he keeps in a safe.”

  They stepped around the corner and passed two prosecutors who didn’t even seem to notice them. Still, Matt waited until they were out of earshot before leaning closer to Burton and lowering his voice.

  “The Brothers Grimm are storing oxycodone in a facility somewhere outside of Palmdale. Gambini wants it. He wants all of it. The hazardous waste business in Elysian Park is just a front for what’s in those fifty-five-gallon drums. Grubb’s dead. That leaves Ryan Moore and Sonny Daniels.”

  They reached the DA’s office. Burton stopped and gave Matt a worried look.

  “That’s good work, but it’s not my concern right now. You’ve got a problem, Matt. Something’s going on that shouldn’t be going on.”

  Matt didn’t say anything. He watched Burton check the hallway again and turn back, his voice sounding anxious.

  “Paladino agrees with me. Something’s going on that’s not natural. Colon’s personal attacks toward you are too high pitched to be directed at someone she never had contact with. Your interview in the interrogation room last night was laughable, if not illegal. They never read you your rights. And who knows how the chief really fits into all this? You’re off the case, but then you’re back on—only it’s our little secret. You see what I mean? Things don’t work that way when it’s clean.”

  Matt could feel his heart pounding in his chest. “How do you want to handle this?” he said. “What’s your best advice?”

  Burton pulled a business card out of his pocket and passed it over. Matt glanced at the name printed on the face. It was Buddy Paladino’s law firm, along with contact information that included Paladino’s cell number written in ink.

  “This is who you call if you’re in trouble,” Burton said. “And don’t wait on it. If something happens, call Paladino right away. You’ll be in good hands. He’s the best defense attorney in the business.”

  “And until something happens?”

  “That’s been the problem with this case from the beginning, hasn’t it? Everyone on the list seems to be bought and paid for. Everybody wants something. As far as I can tell, they’re all suspects at one level or another.” Burton checked his watch. “I’m late. I’ve gotta go. We’ll talk later.”

  “Any other advice?”

  Burton turned back, thinking it through as he spoke. “Pick your moments, Matt. Don’t let them pick you.”

  Matt watched Burton walk into the DA’s office and disappear through the waiting room. As he stood there, his new reality weighing down his back, the self-doubt that he’d been wrestling with last night began to prey on him again. People were walking up and down the hall, glancing at him in a way that he wasn’t used to. Like just maybe they’d been watching the news last night or even early this morning. Like just maybe they knew what Colon had accused him of. Like just maybe they bough
t into the vile woman’s bogus trip.

  LAPD detective Matt Jones fell asleep at the wheel, and now an innocent man was dead.

  The anger percolating through his body felt particularly raw. He grimaced and tried to shake off the bad vibes. All the lies. Hustling over to the elevator, he got out of the building as quickly as he could and made it to his car in the lot on First Street. The coffee he’d filled his mug with at home still felt warm, and he took a sip. Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he found David Speeks’s number over at the crime lab and hit “Enter.” Speeks picked up after two rings.

  “If you’re calling about lifting prints from inside the nitrile gloves, we’re still working on it, Jones.”

  Matt set the mug down in the cup holder. “How long do you think it’s gonna take?”

  “No predictions.”

  “Anything else going on?”

  “Now that you mention it, something curious came up this morning.”

  “Like what, Speeks?”

  “It’s the cash we found at Moe Rey’s house.”

  “The hundred-dollar bills.”

  “That’s right,” Speeks said. “I don’t know if it means anything, but every one of them came from the same bank.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s what got me going. The cash came from offshore. It came from a bank in Bermuda.”

  It meant something—and Matt let the news settle in as he sat back in his seat. Bermuda was a tax haven for Big Pharma. Many of the most well-known drug companies—the same companies advertising on American television everyday—were headquartered there to avoid paying taxes in the States. But what mattered most was that one of those companies had made their mark in the production of a single drug.

  Oxycodone.

  Moe Rey’s brutal execution now seemed to be tied directly to the Brothers Grimm and their turf war with Robert Gambini.

  “Are you still there, Jones?”

  Matt heard Speeks’s voice and snapped out of it.

  “I’m here, Speeks, thanks. Have you heard anything about Grubb’s autopsy?”

  “If it’s an overdose, you know better than me how long it takes to get the results back. Two weeks, if we’re lucky.”

  “Right,” Matt said. “But they would’ve checked out the tracks on his arm and been able to make a good guess. Is the autopsy over?”

  “They’re releasing the body in an hour or two.”

  Matt started the car. “Grubb lost his wife, Speeks. I don’t think he has any family. Who’s picking up the body?”

  “You got me. Besides, you’re off the case, Jones. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

  “Maybe not, but you owe me. You left Moe Rey’s body in the ground.”

  “I know I owe you.”

  Matt pulled out of the lot and into the street. “When you lift those fingerprints off the gloves, I’m your first call, right?”

  Speeks paused to think it over. “Maybe,” he said finally.

  “No maybes, Speeks. I’m your first call.”

  FORTY-NINE

  Matt worked his way through downtown traffic, heading east for the county coroner’s office. He wanted to know who was going to take charge of Lane Grubb’s corpse. And he wanted to see them do it.

  He crossed a narrow stream of water, what remained of the Los Angeles River, and made a left on North Mission Road. The land was desolate and burned out here—a real long way from all the money that was being poured into downtown or even the Valley. Out the windows on either side, he could see empty lots of sand, trash, and piles of contaminated soil. As he began passing one auto wrecking company after the next, he realized that there wasn’t a single object, a single sign or surface, that hadn’t been tagged with spray paint. If Los Angeles had an anus, this section of the city had to be it. Everything about the place reeked of being at the end of the line.

  He spotted the gas station ahead on the left and then the Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant. The coroner’s office was directly across the street surrounded by a white wall and fencing.

  Matt pulled before the security gate, showed the guard his badge, and cruised to the far end of the lot. There was an open parking space here with a bird’s-eye view of the facility. From here he could see a black hearse backed up to the loading dock. A handful of emergency vehicles were parked along the curb. But it was in the lot by the building’s entrance that he found what he had been hoping for.

  Ryan Moore’s BMW i8 and Sonny Daniels’s Aston Martin DB11. They were parked in two spots reserved for the handicapped by the front door. Daniels and Moore were here in all their rudeness.

  Matt lowered his seat, checked his watch, and settled in. He spent the first twenty minutes trying not to think about the jeopardy he might be in and the downward slide his career seemed to have taken. But even more, he tried to forget the looks he’d seen on people’s faces as they passed him in the hallway outside the DA’s office. The power Colon seemed to have to bury, if not ruin, anyone who didn’t sign on and become a willing partner to her corruption. Her brand of lies, ignorance, and evil.

  His efforts to shed these thoughts only seemed to bring them into sharper focus. It occurred to him that he might run across the street to the Jack in the Box for a fresh cup of coffee and maybe even an early burger. But after checking the time on the dash, he saw the rear doors on the loading dock open and bolted up in his seat.

  A temporary casket, the aluminum battered by time and heavy use, was being wheeled outside on a dolly by two men in scrubs. Daniels and Moore followed them out, watching the driver from the funeral home fumble with his keys before raising the hearse’s rear gate. As Matt measured the two remaining Brothers Grimm from a distance, he wouldn’t have called either one of them grieving. Instead, they appeared uncomfortable, even nervous. And they kept fidgeting and looking over their shoulders.

  Matt wondered if they were keeping an eye out for Robert Gambini. Maybe it was the sight of the battered casket that spooked them. Maybe they thought that with Gambini still out there, they might be next.

  What were the promises Sonny Daniels had made to his two partners less than a week ago? How did he put it? There were no risks to what they were doing. The whole thing was a game. They were all supposed to make money and have a good time.

  Easy Street.

  Matt watched the two men in scrubs roll the casket off the dock and into the hearse. When the driver lowered the gate, Daniels and Moore led the way back into the building and the doors closed.

  Matt turned to the front entrance. After about five minutes the doors opened, and Daniels and Moore stepped out. Then, remarkably, he spotted Councilwoman Colon walking toward them with a group of supporters and three or four TV news cameras. Colon reached out to shake Sonny Daniels’s hand.

  And that’s when it happened. Daniels looked across the lot and straight through Matt’s windshield.

  A nervous moment passed.

  Matt watched Colon follow Sonny’s gaze, the sympathetic look on her face morphing into a twisted mire of hate as her eyes drove through the glass and locked onto his face.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Matt could hear her voice even with the windows closed and the engine running. Colon wasn’t shouting. It was more of a screech or scream as she played to the cameras and feigned outrage.

  “What is this man doing here?” she repeated. “Why are you here? Are you planning to attend the funeral, Detective? A funeral for the man you killed?”

  Matt watched Sonny Daniels step in beside Colon. The crowd was moving toward him quickly. Backing out of the parking space, he tried to reach the exit but ran out of time. Fifteen, maybe twenty of Colon’s supporters were pounding their fists against the windows and the hood of his car.

  “You’re out of control,” Colon was saying. “You’re a disgrace. I got you kicked off the case, and now I’m gonna get you booted off the force. Do you understand me, Detective? I cannot tolerate you. I will not tolerate you.”


  Matt grit his teeth, idling through the crowd. When a man with a video camera stepped in front of the car, Matt didn’t go for the brakes but continued forward. He heard the man let out a scream, then watched him leap to safety with the camera flying off his shoulder and hitting the asphalt.

  Colon pounded her fist against the driver’s side window again. Matt turned and looked at her shrieking at him. Their eyes met, and he held the glance because he wanted to remember the moment. He’d seen it before, but never so clearly. He could see what hate does to the human face. He could see the transformation.

  The deformity.

  “I’m gonna destroy you because I can,” she was saying. “Take that to the bank, Detective. The people’s bank. This is my town and my city. You better believe it, honey. Don’t mess with me or my business.”

  Matt remained calm, reaching the gate finally and pulling onto North Mission Road. He never checked the rearview mirror. Instead, he let the sound of the rabble fade out as the din from the street took over and reset the tone. On the other side of the wrecked landscape, just a few miles beyond the desolation, he could see the tall buildings downtown rising into the clear blue sky and glistening in the bright sunlight.

  He knew there would be trouble. He knew Colon could make something out of nothing and wondered if he should turn off his phone.

  FIFTY

  Colon didn’t eat as much as she fed.

  Matt had followed her limo to the Sunset Cantina, a cafeteria-style restaurant south of Hollywood on Western Avenue. The city councilwoman was with a small group whom Matt guessed were local business owners from her district. As Matt watched her from his car, he noted that she liked to eat, talk while she chewed, and point. But what struck him most were the faces of the people she was seated with. They were listening and nodding the way troops listen and nod when receiving orders from their commanding officer. By all appearances, when it came to Colon, she didn’t work for them as their representative. They worked for her and did as they were told.