The Dark Halo, page 24
“Jesus. How did he even get here?”
“I guess he’s a decent cop, after all.”
He should’ve known what Sutton had planned. It was obvious in hindsight. The fumbling way he’d pulled the revolver out of his pants pocket, a blind man could’ve put two in his chest. The gun was a prop, just like the wine bottle in Vandenberg’s hotel suite. Coombes felt in Sutton’s pocket for his keys. There was no key fob, just an ancient metal key with a Mercedes logo on it. The old man’s car. It was probably older than he was. He stood and made his way toward the door.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s go.”
She hesitated; her eyes locked on his.
“What he said…is it true?”
“Grace, you’re a knock-out but I’m married. You’re my partner and my best friend. Are we good?”
“Yes.”
He noticed he didn’t say that it wasn’t true.
They ran out through the building. Now that Sutton was dead and any threats posed by him vanished, the building seemed to shrink and they were quickly back outside. The driveway was empty, no cars. He wasn’t surprised, they would have noticed the car when they arrived. On a modern car he could have pressed the unlock button and looked for flashing turn signals, but the car he was after didn’t even have central unlocking. He peered down the drive at the security gates and the cars parked on the street.
“Do you see an old Mercedes?”
“No,” she said.
He remembered a space at the side of the house where the Suttons had parked extra cars during parties and took off in that direction. His brain still mulled over what Sutton had said about Grace Sato. Nicky had always cut to the chase, except apparently about his own sexuality.
The Mercedes was where he’d pictured it, down the side of the building. He put the key in the lock and turned but before it could fully open Grace put her hand flat on the trunk to stop it opening.
“Johnny, if it’s true we talk about it, okay?”
Coombes sighed inwardly. She’d forget this conversational thread soon enough, but it wasn’t going to go away as soon as he liked.
“But I’m not transferring or changing partners. I like working with you, John, we’re good together. If I ended up with Wallfisch, I’d die every day.”
“Likewise,” he said.
He opened the trunk and a small yellowish light came on.
Inside, curled up in the fetal position, lay Olivia Sutton. She was stripped to her underwear and had a clear plastic bag fastened around her head with thick copper wire. Her body was emaciated and her skin appeared hollowed out between each of her ribs. She’d been dumped here and left to die. Rage boiled inside him. How could Sutton do this to his own sister? It was impossible. The man he knew was incapable of this, of any of the killings.
A smell rose to meet him, but it was not the smell of decay, it was the smell of sweat turned cold. Of fear. He swallowed and leaned closer; his eyes narrowed. Studying the bag around her head. The inside of the plastic was heavily misted with condensation, almost obscuring her face. He realized he was holding his breath.
The bag’s shape changed.
“She’s alive!”
Coombes tore the bag open, then scooped her out of the trunk and laid her sideways on the driveway in the recovery position. He got on his knees and put the tips of his fingers to her neck. Her skin was cool to the touch and it took him a moment to find her pulse. It was weak, like the beat of a clock that was about to stop. He leaned close to her face, like he was going to kiss her. His eyes were tearing up. He’d assumed she’d been dead the whole time and that her life had been no more than a final tragic death of a sick killer.
“Olive, it’s me, Johnny. Wake up.”
Her face was like a doll’s in the moonlight. He held the back of his hand in front of her nose and mouth. Her breath was barely detectable. The only thing worse than finding her dead would be to lose her in front of him. She needed oxygen. He heard an approaching siren. It would be the ambulance Grace had called in for Lass, but it wasn’t going to arrive in time.
Coombes slapped Olivia’s cheek, hard.
“Johnny!”
He ignored Grace and slapped her again. Harder. Hard enough to leave a mark. Her head would’ve spun right around, except she was lying on the ground, trapping it. His hand stung from the impact. For a second nothing seemed to happen, then there was a gasp and Olivia Sutton’s chest began to rise and fall. He spoke softly into her ear.
“Follow my voice. You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
Olivia’s eyes flickered open. “John?”
Her voice was slurred, like she was drunk.
He smiled. “Olive.”
“Nobody calls me that anymore.”
“Sure they do. I do.”
The ambulance parked at the end of the driveway and doors slammed as medics rushed out from inside. The siren had stopped, but the strobes continued to pulse through the night air, washing their garish colors across the scene. Her eyes moved over his face, reading it.
“Nicky’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “Help me up.”
“Maybe we should wait until you’re checked out first.”
“I had a bag on my head, Johnny, it’s not a spinal injury.”
Coombes lifted her up. Her right arm swung wide and hung limp, her legs remained half folded. She wasn’t ready to stand by a long way. He walked her over to the old Mercedes and they sat on the edge of the trunk. He slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She leaned into him. They’d sat like this many times as teenagers but that was a long time ago.
He looked up and saw Grace watching. Their eyes connected and something passed between them, something he couldn’t explain. Desire. He wasn’t sure what was happening, only that it was going to be a problem. She smiled on one side of her face, then turned and ran toward the medics.
Olivia lifted her right hand up to her cheek.
“What the hell happened to my face?”
37
Billy Lass was stretched out on a hospital bed in front of Coombes. His head was turned away from the door and it gave him a moment to look at his old partner unobserved. The extent of Lass’s workout regime was there for all to see, he was massive. A powder blue nightshirt was stretched to breaking point around his biceps, deltoids, and pectorals. It made him feel inadequate to see so much muscle and yet, he reflected, it hadn’t done Lass much good in the end. Finally, his eyes moved down to Lass’s hands, which sat like white boxing gloves on top of the sheet. Layer upon layer of gauze and tape simultaneously showing and hiding the damage caused by the Ferryman.
“How’re they treating you, big guy?”
Lass turned sleepily toward him. He had a broken nose and two black eyes.
“John. Good to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same, old friend. You look like shit.”
Lass laughed, then winced with pain.
“Don’t sugar-coat it, buddy. Tell me the truth.”
Seeing Lass in this condition bothered him more than he would have predicted and he didn’t want it to show on his face. He glanced around the room with a fixed smile as if he was assessing his accommodation.
“Not bad. Hope they’ve got you on some good stuff?”
“Tramadol. I don’t need to eat or use a toilet anymore, it’s a real timesaver.”
Coombes sat in a chair next to the bed and he allowed Lass to see him looking at his hands. He couldn’t ignore them, he had to respect what Lass had gone through.
“What was he trying to get out of you?”
“Not a damn thing. He never said a word, just broke one finger after another. He was getting off on it, he had a big smile on his face. I passed out before he reached my index fingers and thumbs, so he stopped. No screaming, no fun. Wish I’d passed out earlier.”
“I’m really sorry, Billy. I hope the City’s paying for all this.”
“Yeah. I heard Jackson himself got involved. I’m still officially on the payroll.”
The Chief of Police getting involved usually meant you’d died in the line of duty, or you’d shot the wrong person. Billy Lass’s hospitalization would’ve been a political minefield for the chief given his suspended status.
Coombes indicated a television hanging from the ceiling.
“You saw the news?”
“Yeah, I saw. You nailed that scumbag. Can’t say I’m sorry about it.”
Coombes nodded and stared at the floor. He’d foreseen this reaction by Lass and figured that he might not be pleased to have this view changed if it was giving him comfort.
Lass sighed. “I know that face, John. Spit it out.”
“I need some clarity and figure you’re in a unique position to provide it.”
“You closed the case and saved the girl. What am I missing?”
“There’s a bad taste in my mouth, like I got played.”
Lass frowned. “News said he confessed to the whole thing.”
“He did, but you know how that goes. We had twelve people do that.”
“And told you the location of his sister?”
“I know how it looks, but it’s too easy. Our killer makes no mistakes for months then suddenly we wrap the whole thing up and put him in a drawer inside 24 hours?”
“You give this guy too much credit. He had a run of good luck and then that luck ran out. That’s how these cases always go; slowly then suddenly. Everyone makes mistakes. You know, it seemed to me for a while there you suspected I was the Ferryman.”
“Don’t. I’m mortified enough about that.”
“Water under the bridge. I realize how I must’ve looked sneaking around. To think I honestly thought I could get my badge back by solving a serial. Like that’s important at all to people like Hurst. The Ferryman could have killed people like you and me all day every day and nobody would’ve cared, it’s only money that counts in this town.”
Coombes was quiet for a beat. Thinking. Listening to the sound of the hospital. It sounded like the inside of a machine. He didn’t know what he wanted from Lass. Permission, maybe, to shoot himself in the foot.
“Am I trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?”
Lass smiled; his bitterness forgotten.
“You’ve got integrity, I respect that.”
“What if I’m right?”
“Just show me the picture you came here to show me.”
Coombes took out his cell phone and found a photograph of Nicolas Sutton. The picture had been taken at his father’s memorial service by a news agency and was pin sharp. The TV networks were using a different photograph, taken from his Facebook page. This second picture was of poorer quality, and had obviously been chosen because it showed him standing next to his sister, smiling. He held his phone where Lass could see it. He studied it carefully for thirty seconds before looking back into his eyes, his face hard.
“That ain’t him.”
“You’re sure?”
“No, man. I’m not. It was dark and he’d hit me on the head.”
“If you had to put a number on it then.”
“Seventy percent.”
If Billy had been convinced of Sutton’s guilt, he would’ve let it go. Grudgingly at first, then with relief. He would’ve returned to his desk, filed his paperwork, then gone home for some much-needed time off. Instead, Lass had confirmed his worst fear and he couldn’t be happier. It meant the Ferryman was still out there to be caught. To be put on trial.
“What jumps out at you after seeing the picture?”
“The hair. My guy had shorter hair. When I think on it, he also had a slight cleft in his chin. Face was heavier too. The two are similar looking, I guess, and around the same age.” Lass smiled. “I’ve never been too observant with guys, it’s like a blind spot.”
“Right.”
If Lass wanted to use humor to hide his embarrassment about being a victim, then who was he to argue? He’d probably do the same thing.
“If he’s not the Ferryman, where does that leave you? I assume the shooting is under investigation?”
“Yeah. It’s not ideal, but the bottom line remains the same. He pulled a gun on me and I defended myself. My partner saw the whole thing.”
“Before we spoke, what made you think Sutton was innocent?”
“His confession. Half of it seemed real, half fake.”
“What was fake?”
“He told me he was gay.” Coombes said. He paused a second, wondering how much to tell Lass, before deciding to tell him everything. The man had been through hell, he deserved to know. “He said he’d done all of it for me. So I’d notice him.”
He expected Lass to make an off-color joke, but instead he shook his head.
“If he’s admitting to being a serial killer, why say something random like that even if it’s true? What does it add?”
Coombes shrugged.
“At the time, I figured he was trying to show me that I never really knew who he was. He claimed jealousy was his motive for kidnapping his sister. Because I’d dated her back then.”
“I see that, but I disagree. It’s misdirection. He was hiding something.”
They fell silent for a while, thinking it over. When they began to talk again, a minute or so later, the subject changed to Lass’ wife and son who he’d been discouraging from visiting due to his physical appearance. The dialogue was one-sided for the most part, Coombes’ thoughts caught in a loop of their previous conversation.
He knew in his heart that Lass was right. A misdirection. It seemed so obvious in hindsight. But what had Sutton been hiding? What would someone bother to hide if they were willing to admit to being a serial killer?
What secret was that big? But in a way, he knew.
The same secret that made him admit it in the first place.
“Billy, I have to hit the road. Take care of yourself, okay?”
Lass nodded wordlessly and watched him stand.
“John. Are you really not going to ask? Aren’t you at least curious?”
“What?”
“You never asked what led me to the Silver Lake house.”
“I assumed you were following a hunch or returning to the first suicide to find a new angle.” His voice faded away as a smile broke out on his old partner’s face. He knew it well; he was being mocked. He was over-thinking it. “You put a GPS tracker on Sutton’s car.”
“Correct.”
“I don’t suppose the tracker was there during the abduction?”
“Unfortunately, not,” Lass said.
“Nothing’s ever easy.”
“You got that right, partner. Listen, any chance you could retrieve this tracker for me before it gets logged into evidence? My legal situation is already problematic and I’m stuck here. It’s in the driver-side front wheel arch.”
“Of his Mercedes?”
“Get a clue, John. The man drove a Porsche 911 and he drove it like an absolute lunatic. It’s bright red, about 100 feet past the entrance, you can’t miss it.”
Coombes smiled as he walked down the corridor toward the nurse’s station. He knew what a Porsche 911 looked like, everyone did. It was like a swimwear model version of a Volkswagen Beetle. It had large tilted headlights at the front, and a wing at the back. Also at the back, like the Beetle, was its engine. There was a trunk of sorts at the front, but for sure it wasn’t big enough to hold Olivia Sutton.
Olivia was found in the old Mercedes and the most likely scenario was that the same vehicle was used in her abduction. She hadn’t been transferred there for storage or effect. Nevertheless, he had a clear memory of the key to the old Mercedes hanging on a nail at the back door of the Silver Lake house. Despite the two decades that had passed, he imagined nothing had changed since he’d been a regular visitor.
If Nicky hadn’t been using the car himself, then he figured it had been in semi-regular use by Theodore Sutton right up to the point where he took the short drop in front of the picture window. After his death, the property had remained empty and the key had doubtless remained on its nail.
Anyone at all could have taken the key.
He was still smiling as he stepped up to the nurse’s station.
“Can you tell me where I can find Olivia Sutton?”
A nurse looked up. It wasn’t the one he’d spoken to when he arrived yet he could tell she knew he was a cop. There was always this understanding that seemed to pass over someone’s face when they looked at him. He’d seen it many times, even though he wore a generic suit and tie. Even, apparently, when he was smiling. Without saying anything, she typed into her computer. The head came back up.
“Olivia Sutton is not in my system.”
“She came here last night, same time as Mr. Lass.”
“She’s not in a bed and she’s not in our morgue, so I guess she went home. The hospital can only make crazy people stay.”
He looked her in the eye. “No kidding.”
She smiled. “You’re pretty cheeky for a cop, aren’t you?”
“Just the regular amount.”
He took the elevator to the parking garage and got into his Charger. He sat for a moment thinking about the GPS tracker. The whole thing didn’t ring true. The sheepish way Lass told him about it was not his style.
The truth was, he’d only mentioned it because he needed him to remove it before it was discovered by someone else. He’d had no reason to track Sutton when he did. The only explanation was that Lass had carpet-bombed every possible target, hoping for a Hail Mary. Coombes got out the Dodge, walked around the door, and reached into his own wheel arch.
A box the size of a computer mouse was attached inside.
38
Olivia Sutton lived in the Hollywood Hills on an unnamed road off Woodrow Wilson Drive. Like many homes in the area, it was entirely hidden from street level behind a high wall and a security gate. So far, no news crews had gathered outside, but that situation wouldn’t last long. As both a victim and relative of the killer, Olivia was about to be consumed whole by the media.
