The Dark Halo, page 16
“Yes, Lieutenant. What about surveillance?”
Gantz shook her head.
“Difficult. We don’t have probable cause, that’s what I need you to dig up. Something we can take to a judge to get a warrant.”
He ran his hand over his chin, thinking.
“Are IA investigating the Hurst incident?”
She smiled. “Nice. I see where you’re going. We can piggyback off their investigation and get SIS to start around the clock surveillance. Hurst himself will sign off on that.”
Internal Affairs to the rescue. First time for everything, he supposed.
He stood up. “If that’s everything.”
“Keep me in the loop, John. Every detail.”
“You got it.”
They turned to leave, but Gantz wasn’t finished.
“Grace? Hang back a moment.”
Coombes walked out of the office and closed the door behind him. This is how it started, with private chats behind closed doors. It was lunchtime and the detective bureau was quiet. He stood next to an empty desk and waited for the lieutenant to finish with Sato. She wasn’t long, a minute later she appeared looking embarrassed and avoiding his eye.
“I’m hungry,” he said. “You want to grab something to eat?”
She nodded and they walked to the elevator. There was no-one else standing there, but she looked around to double check they couldn’t be overheard.
“You really think it’s him?”
The more someone looked like they were meant to be doing something, the less they were questioned about it.
“Yeah,” he said. “I really do.”
23
Billy Lass lived in a bungalow in Culver City. He’d bought the property in cash with earrings he’d made as a technical advisor on a TV cop show that never aired. It was a surprisingly common Hollywood story, and one that amused his old partner no end. Coombes parked across the street from it in the shade of a walnut tree and gathered his thoughts. He wasn’t sure what kind of reception he was going to get, or if Lass was smart enough to work out why he was really here. It was a risk he’d have to take.
He’d decided not to call ahead because he wanted to gauge the other man’s natural reaction. Sometimes, those first unguarded seconds could tell you more than an hour-long interview ever could. His smart watch had a voice memo app capable of recording audio within three or four feet and he started the recording. Nothing recorded with it would be admissible, but it was something.
A short flagstone path led up to the front door. He pressed the doorbell, then stepped back so that he wasn’t crowding whoever opened the door. After close to thirty seconds, he heard locks being turned. Coombes put a slight smile on his face, like he’d just remembered a joke, and hoped it would pass for friendly. The door swung open and Lass stood there like a wild animal, his eyes burning bright.
“Johnny! My man! How are you?”
“You know how it is. Knee-deep in the dead. They’re like a tide that keeps rising.”
“Sure, sure. Come in, we’re in the yard.”
As he passed Lass, the narrow doorway forced them both to turn sideways to make room. For a second, they were eye to eye, toe to toe. Lass’ eyes were wide, like he was on drugs. Without knowing why, Coombes smiled.
“Sorry it’s been so long. Barely see my wife, never mind old friends.”
Billy Lass shrugged like it was nothing.
“Are you hungry? We were about to have lunch. We’ve got plenty of food.”
He had timed his arrival with this exact scenario in mind.
“That’d be great.”
Coombes walked down the hallway into a breakfasting kitchen. It was three years since he’d last been here, and it had changed a lot in that time period. Some kind of renovation, a wall missing. Something big. He looked around, trying to figure it out. When he turned back, Lass was standing next to an open fridge.
“Can I get you a beer?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Lass stiffened. “Are you on the program?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
Lass reached into the fridge and pulled out a six pack of Coors.
“Don’t you love it when people quit drinking then can’t stop talking about it? It’s as if they want a goddamn medal. Like, if that’s who you are sober, do the world a favor and have a goddam drink.”
Coombes said nothing.
For the first time, he noted Lass’ physical appearance. At the crime scene, he’d been wearing a shabby old suit, same as always. It’d been a bit on the baggy side, but he hadn’t paid too much attention to it with everything that was going on. But today, he was wearing a tight T-shirt, knee length shorts, and flip-flops. There was no hiding it, Billy Lass hadn’t just lost weight, he’d totally rebuilt his body. His arms looked like the belonged to an Eighties’ action star, they were enormous. Coombes imagined the strength required to deadlift a drugged Steve Ellis into position on the conference table in the Capitol Records Building. It wasn’t the way he’d imagined it, but it was possible. Definitely possible.
Lass seemed to notice the way he was looking at him.
“Are you on the job?”
“Nah, man.”
“What, then?”
Coombes smiled. “Are you kidding? I’m here to see your boy.”
The tension vanished from Lass’ face.
“I thought that was it when I saw you at my door!” He shook his head ruefully from side to side. “I tell you something, Johnny. I love that little guy. He’s got fat sausage arms and legs, but he’s the cutest thing I ever saw. Come on, let’s go out back.”
He followed Lass into his yard, which was huge by L.A. standards. A deck area with a grill and some seating backed onto the house, and beyond that lay a faded rectangle of grass. Despite the cool December sunshine, Lass’ wife lay topless on a towel next to her child.
Coombes looked away, embarrassed.
“Sofia, look. We have a guest.”
“Johnny!”
His wife squealed with delight and ran toward them. Sofia was a very well put-together Latina in her late twenties. She barreled up the steps to the raised deck area and wrapped her arms tight around Coombes’ waist like they were old lovers. His face turned scarlet. He could feel the warm press of her breasts through his thin cotton T-shirt.
He glanced at Lass and saw him grinning from ear to ear.
When Sofia’s hug ended, she looked up at him with a face just as flushed, he guessed, as his own. Coombes had always found her attractive and motherhood had changed nothing. She smiled at him with such warmth that he could feel it in his bones. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like. Her smile faded and she frowned.
“Where have you been, Johnny?”
Her voice now had hard edge. She punched him in the ribs.
“You bastard! What happened to you? We missed you.”
She continued to punch him. They weren’t play punches; they were the real deal. Her face was intense, her dark eyes full of anger and something else. Fire. He’d heard Latinas could be passionate, but had no experience of it until now.
“All right honey,” Lass said. “How about you put a top on?”
She tilted her head over at an angle.
“You don’t like my tits, Johnny?”
He flinched. “I’m…trying not to look.”
“It’s true! He doesn’t like them!”
“They are spectacular, Sofia. Really.”
She beamed up at him, her eyes bright.
“Spectacular! I like that.”
She turned and skipped back down to where her son sat and picked up her bikini top. He hadn’t remembered Sofia being so kooky, but she was a delight. Lass lifted one eyebrow at him and nodded his head slowly, as if to say you see what I’m dealing with?
“You’re a very lucky man,” Coombes said, quietly.
“How so?”
“I totally just destroyed my shorts.”
Lass threw back his head and laughed.
“I don’t doubt it. Her hormones are all over the place right now. She could land a 747 with the signals she’s giving off.”
Sofia returned with her son in her arms. The boy stared at him with unblinking curiosity. Despite his young age, the child already had a thick swatch of dark hair.
“Johnny, meet John.” She smiled. “Do you mind that we named him after you?”
God, it was true.
“I’m honored. Can I hold him?”
He had learned that this is what new parents expect you to ask and she happily handed the infant over to him. John wasn’t a small baby and was surprisingly heavy. Coombes looked into the child’s dark eyes and found himself smiling. He rocked John from side to side. There was something pleasing about the child’s weight. What am I going to do if I find out your dad’s a serial killer? It would be a disaster. A guy like Lass, he wouldn’t give himself up. He’d fight till his last breath. If it came to it, would he put him in the ground?
“He likes you,” Sofia said.
“Smart kid.”
“You got one of your own yet?”
The rocking stopped and he passed the child back to his startled mother.
“No.”
Lass laughed again and clapped his hand down on his shoulders. “Lighten up, Coombes! It’ll happen, believe me. And not when you expect, that’s for sure. Now, let’s get some burgers on the grill, I’m starved.”
Sofia moved back over to her spot on the grass with John, and he and Lass moved over to the large grill at the end of the deck. It looked like the grill had been on for some time, and the heat distorted the air above it. He’d embarrassed himself and he decided to stay silent for a while. He watched Lass set out a huge pile of food across the surface of the grill. Burgers, hot dogs, corn cobs. It seemed to go on and on.
“I don’t know if you’ve got enough food for all of us, Billy. You want me to go pick something up?”
Lass turned to him, a long two-pronged fork between them.
“You know, Sofia’s right. We have missed you.”
He nodded, awkwardly.
“I heard you had some kind of beef with Hurst, you ever get that sorted out?”
“No, man. It’s still going on.”
“What’s the real story? All I heard was that you assaulted him.”
Lass nodded and seemed to gather himself for a moment.
“We were at a charity dinner for sick kids. Five grand a plate if you believe that. I was standing in for my L-T who bailed at the last minute, so it was all paid for. Everything was going fine. The booze was flowing and the food was fantastic. Not my usual gig, but it was cool. How the other half live, you know? Men in ten-thousand-dollar tuxedos, women in fifty-thousand-dollar dresses. It was something else, like being at the Oscars maybe.
“Anyway, Sofia had to keep going to the restroom and I see Hurst approach her three different times as she came and went, trying to hand her his empty wine glass. He saw her, and he saw a servant. Three times! She was eight and a half months pregnant, John. I didn’t catch on at first what was happening, but soon as I did, I kicked his balls into the back of his throat and I don’t regret it for a second. Nobody treats my girl like that.”
Coombes sighed. None of this surprised him in the slightest.
“I’m sorry, Billy. That’s tough.”
Lass shrugged and drank some beer. His body had become tense, his memory bringing the anger back. Coombes moved a little closer and dropped his voice.
“I kind of wish I’d seen that fight though.”
Lass looked him in the eye.
“It was fantastic. I felt like a god. I could’ve kicked him all night long. It was the best rush of my life seeing that racist cracker cowering on the floor. I shouldn’t say this, being a cop, but some fools need to be called out for their behavior, it’s the only way they’ll learn.”
Lass’s eyes shone like they’d been polished. There was a spark there, the same kind of crazy energy he’d noticed at the front door.
“I hear that,” Coombes said. “The man’s had it coming for years.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Thank you.”
Smoke started to rise from the grill and Lass began to flip burgers.
“Is that beer still on offer?”
Lass smiled. “Help yourself.”
Coombes took a can, opened it and took a long drink. It was still ice-cold from the fridge and it felt good going down. He watched Lass work the grill in silence. The altercation with Hurst predated any of the Ferryman’s kills. It was conceivable that the fight had been the trigger event for everything that was to follow. Either the enjoyment of the violence itself, or the suspension from duty that stemmed from it. He moved his beer can into his left hand so that his watch could better capture conversation.
“I’ve not been in a fight since my early twenties, but when you mention that buzz…I can remember it like it was yesterday. Sometimes, words just don’t get the job done.”
“I knew you’d understand, Johnny. We come from the same place, you and me. We’re the same. But you know how the system works, the elite close ranks. We all get passed the empty wine glass, my friend. We’re just dirt on the soles of their feet.”
Lass played the victim card all wrong. For him, it was like a superhero’s cape that he wore around his shoulders with pride. By playing the part of victim none of his circumstances were his fault. He understood Lass’ attitude to a racist like Hurst, not to mention his desire to protect his wife, but did it stop there or had Lass taken it somewhere else? With the right mindset, Lass could use these beliefs to justify almost anything.
“I take it Hurst is pressing charges?”
“Actually, no. From my reading of the situation, he can’t. If he presses charges then the whole thing will come out. He knows he can get away with being racist in a one on one, but he’s smart enough to know it’s career poison out in the open. He’s refusing to take part in the investigation, so the whole thing’s dragged on for months.”
Lass began to scoop up burgers and put them into buns he had sitting open. He put two patties per bun, each one 3/4s of an inch thick. When he was through, he added a serving of ketchup and mustard, a plastic bottle in each hand like a production line and then sat the top bun in place. Coombes saw Lass was smiling as he worked and he found himself smiling along with him. It had been a while since they had been friends but some things never change. There was a bond of some sort between them even now, with the thought of the murders in the background. Lass passed him a plate towering with food.
“Do me a favor, Johnny. Don’t talk about this in front of Sofia.”
“No problem.”
He stayed for almost two hours. Eating, drinking, and talking. It was as though nothing had happened, their friendship picking back up where it had left off with no bad blood. By the time he got up to leave, it was obvious to Coombes that his partner’s life had turned out better than his, and the only cloud on the horizon was the business with Hurst. As far as he could see, Lass had too much to lose to be killing off the city’s rich. He was a family man now. He’d struck out at the captain to protect his wife, that was all. Coombes had gone back and forth over this problem the entire time and every time he’d decided he’d reject the idea, he’d catch a hint of darkness or rage in Lass’s eyes or the curl of his mouth.
Lass walked with him, down his path to the street.
“You’re taking a lot of heat on this Ferryman thing.”
This was the first time either of them had mentioned the case.
“It’s going to get worse before I’m through.”
They crossed the street and stood next to the walnut tree.
“At your press conference on Friday, you said that you had several promising lines of enquiry. Is that true?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you’ve got nothing?”
Coombes laughed.
“Not a goddamn thing, brother. The guy’s a ghost. A real pro.”
He watched Lass’ face closely. His eyes dipped down to the ground and the corners of his mouth came up. Tiny movements. Micro-expressions. He was no expert, but it was clear to him that Billy Lass was pleased his case was going nowhere.
Coombes unlocked his car and got in. It was cool inside; the walnut tree had done its job. He started the car and lowered the window so he could sign off with Lass. Billy put his hands on the door frame, his muscular body leaning over him.
“That coins on the eyes thing, I assume that’s to detect copycats and fakes?”
“Correct. I didn’t know I was gifting the guy a name.”
Lass nodded and was silent awhile, thinking.
“No link between the victims?”
“None we can find. We’re still looking, but I think it’s a bust.”
“Random then? An opportunist.”
“The method is his thing, the challenge of it, rather than the victim. You saw that damn catapult. At the end of the day, the victim is just meat.”
He still hadn’t asked Lass why he was at the Capitol Records Building, and he could see that there was no easy way to get to it. If he broached it head-on, it would be obvious to Lass why he’d come here and that would end their friendship. There’d be no going back, and he needed to keep Lass on-side so that he could continue to sniff around.
“Billy, thanks for lunch. It was great to meet John. I meant to bring him something, a gift, but the time got away from me. Next time, I’ll do better.”
This wasn’t true. He’d deliberately not brought anything to give him another reason to come back. Lass appeared to notice that his hands were on the paintwork and without batting an eyelid, took a cloth from his pocket and wiped down the door frame.
“Call me anytime if you want to bounce some ideas off me about the case. I need a project to work on to keep my hand in the game, you know?”
“I might just do that.”
24
Coombes sat in the task force room staring at the wall. Not the wall they’d covered with information, but the blank wall above Grace Sato’s head. The room affected his concentration in a way he couldn’t define. He preferred to work alone or, at most, with a partner. Being part of a large group didn’t work for him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t delegate, it was that the small apparently insignificant steps that were part of every investigation were actually part of his process, and often where a case broke. To notice inconsistencies in data, one person had to view all of it.
