The Dark Halo, page 6
“I’m not allowed alcohol during work hours.”
“Likewise,” he said, his fingernail tapping a glass of Scotch.
“Water’s fine,” she said, her gaze shifting to the cooler units under the counter. “The Evian. Leave it in the bottle, unopened.”
Coombes sighed inwardly. Meeting her in a bar close to her work was meant to put her at ease; the informal setting combined with the casual intimacy of a drink, was all supposed to make her open up. So far, it was for nothing. He might as well be interviewing in her office. Coombes paid for her water then guided her over to an empty booth he’d identified minutes earlier. He chose the far side of the table so that when she sat opposite, she was facing a wall and away from anyone that might recognize her.
He wanted her undivided attention.
She unfastened her suit jacket and lowered herself onto the bench seat and, after split second, he did the same. The top four buttons of her shirt were unfastened and he was treated to an extensive view of her cleavage.
She had never been more beautiful and it was obvious to him that she knew it. Four buttons. That was one too many, that extra button, that was just to mess with him. Remind him what he was missing, which was more than he remembered. Possibly had work done, he thought bitterly. She was certainly in the right window of age and wealth for cosmetic surgery.
Olivia straightened her back and light from the window fell evenly across her face. She had a dark halo around the pale blue irises of her eyes, a feature known as a limbal ring. He felt himself drawn to her once again, like he was tumbling into a black hole.
No man could resist those eyes.
“All right, Johnny, why am I here?”
“When was the last time you saw your father, and how did he seem?”
She nodded, encouraged by his businesslike tone and strong eye contact.
“It was two days before he passed. Just an ordinary day. He was having a problem with one of his contractors and was shouting a lot. Swearing. His face was red, sweaty. But he lived for all that. It was like oxygen to him, it puffed him up. I’d seen it a million times before, and didn’t much care to see it again.”
“Where was this?”
“At his office in Century City.”
“When you heard what happened, what was your first reaction?”
“Shock. Denial. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true.” She shrugged. “The whole cliché. As time passed, it seemed less and less surprising. I still didn’t want it to be true, but if I got anything from dad it was the ability to see things the way they were, not the way I wanted them to be. Within a week, I’d accepted it.”
Her answer seemed a little stale, but he wasn’t the first cop she’d spoken to and he supposed she’d also talked about it endlessly with friends. Repeating similar lines over and over removed emotion that would’ve lain behind them first time around. He was coming to the party late. It was what it was. He changed tack.
“How was his health? Was he okay?”
“Johnny, you remember dad. If anything was wrong with him the last thing he’d do is tell me about it. Far as I know, he was as strong as an ox.”
Coombes nodded. “How’s Nicky?”
Olivia glanced over her shoulder as if her brother was somewhere in the bar. She took a deep breath, then let it slowly out, her eyes coming back to connect with his.
“I’m sorry for the way he came at you the other day. He was a lot closer to dad than I was. He worked with him 24-7. You can’t imagine what that’s like. He looks at this empty desk all day. Before it was like there was an angry tiger there, now, just silence. Nicky has not come to terms with it. He’s so angry, he might never.”
He sat back in his seat, like he was imagining the silent office, or the angry tiger, when really, he was reacting to was the way she spoke when she was talking about her brother.
“What happens with the business?”
Her gaze became, sharp, piercing.
“Split straight down the middle. Fifty-fifty.”
Coombes said nothing. Nicolas Sutton already owned fifty percent of the business, the only person to gain from their father’s death was sitting across the table from him. A darkness crept into her face; the mask of beauty forgotten.
“You don’t think he killed himself, do you?”
“I liked your dad. He was good to me. Officially, there’s no investigation into his death. I just took a look to make sure everything was as it should be. Because we used to be friends.”
He delivered the last line with extra emphasis.
Her cheeks turned scarlet; her teeth clenched tight together in an effort to control her curling lip. A fire burned inside her, and he could see it in her eyes. She stood abruptly and leaned across the table toward him, supporting her upper body on spread-open fingers. Her mouth barely opened as she spoke.
“Drop it. He killed himself, there’s no goddam mystery.”
She was inches from his face now, eyes filled with fury. Close enough, that her emotion could be mistaken for passion. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he remembered teenage Olivia and her intense physical demands. Her change in demeanor was both surprising and satisfying. Their interview wasn’t for nothing after all.
She spoke again, loud enough for half the bar to hear.
“I know why you’re doing this, John. I’m not stupid. You and me? Ancient history. I’m not interested, okay? Call me again and I’ll file harassment charges.”
She stomped angrily away, suit jacket spread wide on either side of her arms, a crackling bad energy surrounding her body. He wasn’t the only person to watch her leave, her raised voice and stunning looks had guaranteed that. When the street door swung shut, faces turned back to him, the cause of the whole scene. One of them, a man about the same age as him, burst out laughing.
Coombes turned away to stop the anger rising.
He didn’t like being told to drop a case. Not by his partner, not by his lieutenant, and not by a relative of the deceased who was probably fifty million dollars richer as a result of it. The Sutton property empire, the mansion in Silver Lake, the beach house…it all added up. But to what? Murder? He knew one thing for sure, Olivia could not have killed her father on her own. Teddy Sutton weighed 220 pounds minimum, there was no way she could’ve lifted him into that noose.
Had she mistaken his interest as a demand for some of the inheritance?
I know what you did, cut me in or I spill the beans.
He sighed and slowly rotated his glass of Scotch.
It had been a mistake to question her in a bar, alone. Whatever his thinking had been at the time, the scenario fitted all too well with her version of events, which she’d been kind enough to detail. That he was using her father’s death to forcibly reinsert himself in her life, and that his investigation was little more than an excuse for the unwanted romantic interest of a predator with a badge.
The extra button.
Olivia hadn’t dressed provocatively for his benefit. She’d done it to be remembered by other bar patrons. She’d come here with a plan to neutralize him, it hadn’t just evolved because of the way the conversation had turned. To gift wrap it, she’d caused a scene as she left that implied impropriety on his part. It was the kind of story that the media would eat up.
For now, his investigation into the Sutton suicide was over.
He left his untouched fifteen-dollar Scotch and Olivia’s five-dollar water on the table and walked out into the street and the unforgiving Californian sunshine. His cell phone rang.
“How’s your hot date going?”
Grace’s voice dripped with amusement. Even his partner suspected his motivation.
“Not good. I forgot something about Olivia that was pretty important.”
“What’s that?”
“She’s a lot smarter than I am.”
Grace laughed and he closed his eyes, listening to it. He only heard her laugh properly over the phone, in person she covered her mouth with her hand like she was coughing or sneezing. He smiled. It was a beautiful laugh and it picked him up, hearing it.
“Anyway,” she said. “Pacific Pictures came through for us on the threatening correspondence. Let’s just say our suspect pool for Milton Vandenberg just got a lot longer. We’re going to need some boots on this one, Johnny.”
9
Jake Curtis’s home was hidden from view by a ten-foot wall and a metal gate made from inch thick bars with sheet metal sandwiched in the middle to prevent anyone from seeing inside. It was a fortress. Coombes sighed inwardly. Before he worked Robbery Homicide, the majority of his suspects had doors you could knock on. When they answered, there was no scope for hiding anything or fleeing the scene. They were right there. When you dealt with a home owner through a speaker, they had plenty of time to prepare. Get their story straight, hide the body, flush their drugs. Their properties were so large it was impossible to tell if they were occupied. Some speaker systems, the owners could answer using their cell phones from anywhere in the world.
The rich had it good.
Coombes had been watching the property since six a.m. from the driver’s seat of his personal vehicle, parked on the outside curve of a turning circle opposite Curtis’ gate. It was now close to eight thirty, and the only thing that had happened in that time was that two private security cars and a West Bureau SUV had approached him to ask him his business. After another ten minutes had crawled past, Sato arrived in a plain-wrap Ford Taurus from the motor pool. He parked his car on Franklyn Canyon Drive and hoped it would still be there when he came back for it.
When he returned to the Ford, he saw that Sato had moved over into the passenger seat and that her shoeless feet were up on the dashboard. He glanced at her feet as he got in behind the wheel. Sato had said nothing at all about Curtis since the day before, yet it was obvious to him that she did not share his suspicion.
“What are you thinking?”
“I know you’ve got a hard-on for this guy, Johnny, but Curtis is all wrong for this. He put his name on the receipt for that package, he wanted Vandenberg to know who sent it and didn’t care what the consequences were. Do you really think he’s going to kill him a week later? That’s like confessing to the crime before it happened.”
He nodded; he couldn’t disagree with her.
“All I know is some people get lost in their anger, it consumes them. One week he figures the pig’s head is enough, the next, only the old man’s death will satisfy him.”
“If we are looking only at Vandenberg, I could see it. But why would Curtis kill these other people first. If it was the other way around, you could argue that he got a taste for it. As it is you’re either saying he killed four or five people then his true target or he happened to be a serial killer already, in which case the pig’s head makes no sense.”
“There’s a lot of things wrong with the situation, Grace. We just follow leads wherever they go. If you’ve got some new investigative method, I’d love to hear it.”
They were silent for a moment before Sato spoke again.
“You always say it’s never the first suspect. It’s your mantra.”
Coombes looked across and saw she was angry.
“You actually listen to what I say?”
Her face relaxed. “Just enough to wing it.”
He smiled. It was true, it was never the first suspect, not at their level. Cases where the killer was found covered in blood next to their victim were mopped up by local uniforms. They did happen, just not in Homicide Special.
The over-the-top nature of Curtis’ mail package stuck in his throat. It was too much, it called attention to itself. Sato was right, it was like a confession. But what if it was something else? The writer had to know he’d come to their attention, his threat to kill Vandenberg would be remembered. Sending the pig’s head beforehand demonstrated that he was a buffoon, not to be taken seriously. He’d left his name on the receipt, no one that stupid could be responsible for flawlessly killing four or five people.
Wasn’t it more likely that they were suicides after all?
Coombes could practically hear Curtis’ lawyer in court, arguing for mistrial.
“What’s the plan, Johnny? We can’t sit here all day.”
“Suppose for a moment that Curtis is the killer.”
“All right.”
“So far, he’s made only one mistake, the TV remote control. The guy’s good. All things being equal, he might not make any more mistakes, maybe that was it.”
“Go on.”
“I figure it’s time to shake the tree, see what falls out.”
“How does sitting here accomplish that?”
“Before you arrived, a local security guy came to chase me away. I badged him and told him to get lost, I didn’t spare his feelings. A short while later, another guy appeared. Older, more senior, with pectorals like hub caps. Same story, he told me to leave or get towed. When the badge didn’t work, I introduced him to my Glock and he left. The next guy was a real cop and the two of us had a good laugh at the rent-a-cops. Point is, Curtis knows we’re here, I assume there’s a camera somewhere, and he’s trying to get us to leave.”
“I’m just dying to know what we do now.”
“Isn’t it obvious? We leave.”
He started the car and gunned the engine, foot flat on the floor. A cloud of smoke rose in the air and they shot off down the street. Sato gripped the door handle tight, her mouth hanging open. At the junction with Beverly Drive, he yanked the wheel to the left and the back of the Ford swung wide before the tires began to bite. He braked sharply and carried out a fast three-point turn in front of a driveway.
A silver Koenigsegg was parked at the side of the road and he pulled in behind it. Their vehicle was almost completely hidden by the sports car’s huge rear wing, it was perfect.
Sato lowered her feet off the dashboard onto the floor.
“Jesus, Johnny. I almost pissed my pants.”
He watched the end of Desford Drive, waiting for movement.
“I give him ten minutes.”
“You’re a certifiable lunatic, do you know that?”
He shot her a look and saw that her face was flushed and her hair was all over the place. She was breathing fast through her mouth, but it wasn’t anger he saw in her eyes, it was something else. Something he couldn’t place. He turned to look back through the windshield. After five minutes, the red nose of a Ferrari pushed carefully into the junction.
Curtis was leaving.
He let a moment pass before he pulled out and began to follow. The curving road helped mask their tail, though it also meant the Ferrari was out of sight for up to thirty seconds. Curtis drove slowly, like he was driving home after a night’s drinking and wanted to avoid being pulled over. He was rattled, but the longer he drove without incident, the more confidence would return. Coombes overtook a pickup, then another two cars. He couldn’t afford to trail behind the writer on city streets.
They cut slowly across to West Hollywood and joined the 101 heading south. The Ferrari could probably hit 200 mph, but in L.A. traffic it was lucky to do 50. Almost an hour had passed and they’d learned nothing. Coombes began to close up on him. They switched to the 110, then off, onto West 4th street. They needed gas; the needle was pointing at the last line of the gauge. The traffic ground to a halt. They were directly behind Curtis now. He didn’t care if the writer knew they were there.
“He’s going to see us, Johnny.”
“I want him to see us. I’m shaking the tree.”
Above them the light changed and they moved forward again. Slow and steady, 14 mph. The Ferrari was so close that he couldn’t see the bottom of Curtis’ vehicle. No more than a shopping cart width apart now. The writer’s eyes moved between the road ahead and his rearview constantly. Coombes smiled, big enough for his teeth to show.
Next to him, Grace sighed, exasperated.
They were approaching City Hall now. In front, he saw Curtis talking in an animated manner, presumably over a hands-free cell phone. Maybe calling 911 to report his terrible driving. The idea of being pulled over by a black and white while trailing a potential serial killer amused him. Curtis finished his call and returned to the back and forth between the road and his mirrors. If he was the killer, he’d know why he was being followed.
That his pattern of kills had been identified.
Another light changed and Curtis began to slow, then stop. Coombes pulled up behind him. The writer was watching him carefully in his rearview. As soon as he stopped, Curtis hit the gas. In less than a second, he crossed the intersection. A second after that, the intersection was filled with vehicles from the cross street. In the gaps between passing cars Coombes saw that the Ferrari had disappeared. Grace snorted.
“You kind of had that coming, Johnny.”
Coombes said nothing. He didn’t care that much. The whole point of the exercise was to let Curtis know that they were on to him so that he’d start to panic, maybe make some mistakes. Because so far, he was doing a fine job running a masterclass in the perfect crime. The next step would be to bring him in and question him, now that he was softened up.
When they got back underway there was no sign of the Ferrari. There was nothing else to do but return to base and figure out the best approach for taking another run at Curtis. They continued on in silence for several minutes. It wasn’t unusual for Grace to be quiet, but this time he sensed judgement. In her eyes, he’d made a fool of himself, of both of them, and she wasn’t happy.
His cell phone rang. “Coombes.”
“This is Block. What’s your current location?”
“We’re a minute out. Curtis gave us the slip.”
“What a coincidence. He’s sitting in my office.”
“He lawyered up?”
“That’s right. There’s some kind of recording, you know the deal. Get back here and have Sato set up a laptop in the meeting room and let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
“You got it.”
Coombes disconnected and brought Grace up to speed while he parked. A recording. He knew what that meant, Jake Curtis had an alibi. Which in turn meant they were back to square one with no suspects. He found that he wasn’t at all surprised. When something was too good to be true, it usually was. His mood nosedived anyway. He wanted it to be Curtis, it was like a hunger he couldn’t feed.
“Likewise,” he said, his fingernail tapping a glass of Scotch.
“Water’s fine,” she said, her gaze shifting to the cooler units under the counter. “The Evian. Leave it in the bottle, unopened.”
Coombes sighed inwardly. Meeting her in a bar close to her work was meant to put her at ease; the informal setting combined with the casual intimacy of a drink, was all supposed to make her open up. So far, it was for nothing. He might as well be interviewing in her office. Coombes paid for her water then guided her over to an empty booth he’d identified minutes earlier. He chose the far side of the table so that when she sat opposite, she was facing a wall and away from anyone that might recognize her.
He wanted her undivided attention.
She unfastened her suit jacket and lowered herself onto the bench seat and, after split second, he did the same. The top four buttons of her shirt were unfastened and he was treated to an extensive view of her cleavage.
She had never been more beautiful and it was obvious to him that she knew it. Four buttons. That was one too many, that extra button, that was just to mess with him. Remind him what he was missing, which was more than he remembered. Possibly had work done, he thought bitterly. She was certainly in the right window of age and wealth for cosmetic surgery.
Olivia straightened her back and light from the window fell evenly across her face. She had a dark halo around the pale blue irises of her eyes, a feature known as a limbal ring. He felt himself drawn to her once again, like he was tumbling into a black hole.
No man could resist those eyes.
“All right, Johnny, why am I here?”
“When was the last time you saw your father, and how did he seem?”
She nodded, encouraged by his businesslike tone and strong eye contact.
“It was two days before he passed. Just an ordinary day. He was having a problem with one of his contractors and was shouting a lot. Swearing. His face was red, sweaty. But he lived for all that. It was like oxygen to him, it puffed him up. I’d seen it a million times before, and didn’t much care to see it again.”
“Where was this?”
“At his office in Century City.”
“When you heard what happened, what was your first reaction?”
“Shock. Denial. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true.” She shrugged. “The whole cliché. As time passed, it seemed less and less surprising. I still didn’t want it to be true, but if I got anything from dad it was the ability to see things the way they were, not the way I wanted them to be. Within a week, I’d accepted it.”
Her answer seemed a little stale, but he wasn’t the first cop she’d spoken to and he supposed she’d also talked about it endlessly with friends. Repeating similar lines over and over removed emotion that would’ve lain behind them first time around. He was coming to the party late. It was what it was. He changed tack.
“How was his health? Was he okay?”
“Johnny, you remember dad. If anything was wrong with him the last thing he’d do is tell me about it. Far as I know, he was as strong as an ox.”
Coombes nodded. “How’s Nicky?”
Olivia glanced over her shoulder as if her brother was somewhere in the bar. She took a deep breath, then let it slowly out, her eyes coming back to connect with his.
“I’m sorry for the way he came at you the other day. He was a lot closer to dad than I was. He worked with him 24-7. You can’t imagine what that’s like. He looks at this empty desk all day. Before it was like there was an angry tiger there, now, just silence. Nicky has not come to terms with it. He’s so angry, he might never.”
He sat back in his seat, like he was imagining the silent office, or the angry tiger, when really, he was reacting to was the way she spoke when she was talking about her brother.
“What happens with the business?”
Her gaze became, sharp, piercing.
“Split straight down the middle. Fifty-fifty.”
Coombes said nothing. Nicolas Sutton already owned fifty percent of the business, the only person to gain from their father’s death was sitting across the table from him. A darkness crept into her face; the mask of beauty forgotten.
“You don’t think he killed himself, do you?”
“I liked your dad. He was good to me. Officially, there’s no investigation into his death. I just took a look to make sure everything was as it should be. Because we used to be friends.”
He delivered the last line with extra emphasis.
Her cheeks turned scarlet; her teeth clenched tight together in an effort to control her curling lip. A fire burned inside her, and he could see it in her eyes. She stood abruptly and leaned across the table toward him, supporting her upper body on spread-open fingers. Her mouth barely opened as she spoke.
“Drop it. He killed himself, there’s no goddam mystery.”
She was inches from his face now, eyes filled with fury. Close enough, that her emotion could be mistaken for passion. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he remembered teenage Olivia and her intense physical demands. Her change in demeanor was both surprising and satisfying. Their interview wasn’t for nothing after all.
She spoke again, loud enough for half the bar to hear.
“I know why you’re doing this, John. I’m not stupid. You and me? Ancient history. I’m not interested, okay? Call me again and I’ll file harassment charges.”
She stomped angrily away, suit jacket spread wide on either side of her arms, a crackling bad energy surrounding her body. He wasn’t the only person to watch her leave, her raised voice and stunning looks had guaranteed that. When the street door swung shut, faces turned back to him, the cause of the whole scene. One of them, a man about the same age as him, burst out laughing.
Coombes turned away to stop the anger rising.
He didn’t like being told to drop a case. Not by his partner, not by his lieutenant, and not by a relative of the deceased who was probably fifty million dollars richer as a result of it. The Sutton property empire, the mansion in Silver Lake, the beach house…it all added up. But to what? Murder? He knew one thing for sure, Olivia could not have killed her father on her own. Teddy Sutton weighed 220 pounds minimum, there was no way she could’ve lifted him into that noose.
Had she mistaken his interest as a demand for some of the inheritance?
I know what you did, cut me in or I spill the beans.
He sighed and slowly rotated his glass of Scotch.
It had been a mistake to question her in a bar, alone. Whatever his thinking had been at the time, the scenario fitted all too well with her version of events, which she’d been kind enough to detail. That he was using her father’s death to forcibly reinsert himself in her life, and that his investigation was little more than an excuse for the unwanted romantic interest of a predator with a badge.
The extra button.
Olivia hadn’t dressed provocatively for his benefit. She’d done it to be remembered by other bar patrons. She’d come here with a plan to neutralize him, it hadn’t just evolved because of the way the conversation had turned. To gift wrap it, she’d caused a scene as she left that implied impropriety on his part. It was the kind of story that the media would eat up.
For now, his investigation into the Sutton suicide was over.
He left his untouched fifteen-dollar Scotch and Olivia’s five-dollar water on the table and walked out into the street and the unforgiving Californian sunshine. His cell phone rang.
“How’s your hot date going?”
Grace’s voice dripped with amusement. Even his partner suspected his motivation.
“Not good. I forgot something about Olivia that was pretty important.”
“What’s that?”
“She’s a lot smarter than I am.”
Grace laughed and he closed his eyes, listening to it. He only heard her laugh properly over the phone, in person she covered her mouth with her hand like she was coughing or sneezing. He smiled. It was a beautiful laugh and it picked him up, hearing it.
“Anyway,” she said. “Pacific Pictures came through for us on the threatening correspondence. Let’s just say our suspect pool for Milton Vandenberg just got a lot longer. We’re going to need some boots on this one, Johnny.”
9
Jake Curtis’s home was hidden from view by a ten-foot wall and a metal gate made from inch thick bars with sheet metal sandwiched in the middle to prevent anyone from seeing inside. It was a fortress. Coombes sighed inwardly. Before he worked Robbery Homicide, the majority of his suspects had doors you could knock on. When they answered, there was no scope for hiding anything or fleeing the scene. They were right there. When you dealt with a home owner through a speaker, they had plenty of time to prepare. Get their story straight, hide the body, flush their drugs. Their properties were so large it was impossible to tell if they were occupied. Some speaker systems, the owners could answer using their cell phones from anywhere in the world.
The rich had it good.
Coombes had been watching the property since six a.m. from the driver’s seat of his personal vehicle, parked on the outside curve of a turning circle opposite Curtis’ gate. It was now close to eight thirty, and the only thing that had happened in that time was that two private security cars and a West Bureau SUV had approached him to ask him his business. After another ten minutes had crawled past, Sato arrived in a plain-wrap Ford Taurus from the motor pool. He parked his car on Franklyn Canyon Drive and hoped it would still be there when he came back for it.
When he returned to the Ford, he saw that Sato had moved over into the passenger seat and that her shoeless feet were up on the dashboard. He glanced at her feet as he got in behind the wheel. Sato had said nothing at all about Curtis since the day before, yet it was obvious to him that she did not share his suspicion.
“What are you thinking?”
“I know you’ve got a hard-on for this guy, Johnny, but Curtis is all wrong for this. He put his name on the receipt for that package, he wanted Vandenberg to know who sent it and didn’t care what the consequences were. Do you really think he’s going to kill him a week later? That’s like confessing to the crime before it happened.”
He nodded; he couldn’t disagree with her.
“All I know is some people get lost in their anger, it consumes them. One week he figures the pig’s head is enough, the next, only the old man’s death will satisfy him.”
“If we are looking only at Vandenberg, I could see it. But why would Curtis kill these other people first. If it was the other way around, you could argue that he got a taste for it. As it is you’re either saying he killed four or five people then his true target or he happened to be a serial killer already, in which case the pig’s head makes no sense.”
“There’s a lot of things wrong with the situation, Grace. We just follow leads wherever they go. If you’ve got some new investigative method, I’d love to hear it.”
They were silent for a moment before Sato spoke again.
“You always say it’s never the first suspect. It’s your mantra.”
Coombes looked across and saw she was angry.
“You actually listen to what I say?”
Her face relaxed. “Just enough to wing it.”
He smiled. It was true, it was never the first suspect, not at their level. Cases where the killer was found covered in blood next to their victim were mopped up by local uniforms. They did happen, just not in Homicide Special.
The over-the-top nature of Curtis’ mail package stuck in his throat. It was too much, it called attention to itself. Sato was right, it was like a confession. But what if it was something else? The writer had to know he’d come to their attention, his threat to kill Vandenberg would be remembered. Sending the pig’s head beforehand demonstrated that he was a buffoon, not to be taken seriously. He’d left his name on the receipt, no one that stupid could be responsible for flawlessly killing four or five people.
Wasn’t it more likely that they were suicides after all?
Coombes could practically hear Curtis’ lawyer in court, arguing for mistrial.
“What’s the plan, Johnny? We can’t sit here all day.”
“Suppose for a moment that Curtis is the killer.”
“All right.”
“So far, he’s made only one mistake, the TV remote control. The guy’s good. All things being equal, he might not make any more mistakes, maybe that was it.”
“Go on.”
“I figure it’s time to shake the tree, see what falls out.”
“How does sitting here accomplish that?”
“Before you arrived, a local security guy came to chase me away. I badged him and told him to get lost, I didn’t spare his feelings. A short while later, another guy appeared. Older, more senior, with pectorals like hub caps. Same story, he told me to leave or get towed. When the badge didn’t work, I introduced him to my Glock and he left. The next guy was a real cop and the two of us had a good laugh at the rent-a-cops. Point is, Curtis knows we’re here, I assume there’s a camera somewhere, and he’s trying to get us to leave.”
“I’m just dying to know what we do now.”
“Isn’t it obvious? We leave.”
He started the car and gunned the engine, foot flat on the floor. A cloud of smoke rose in the air and they shot off down the street. Sato gripped the door handle tight, her mouth hanging open. At the junction with Beverly Drive, he yanked the wheel to the left and the back of the Ford swung wide before the tires began to bite. He braked sharply and carried out a fast three-point turn in front of a driveway.
A silver Koenigsegg was parked at the side of the road and he pulled in behind it. Their vehicle was almost completely hidden by the sports car’s huge rear wing, it was perfect.
Sato lowered her feet off the dashboard onto the floor.
“Jesus, Johnny. I almost pissed my pants.”
He watched the end of Desford Drive, waiting for movement.
“I give him ten minutes.”
“You’re a certifiable lunatic, do you know that?”
He shot her a look and saw that her face was flushed and her hair was all over the place. She was breathing fast through her mouth, but it wasn’t anger he saw in her eyes, it was something else. Something he couldn’t place. He turned to look back through the windshield. After five minutes, the red nose of a Ferrari pushed carefully into the junction.
Curtis was leaving.
He let a moment pass before he pulled out and began to follow. The curving road helped mask their tail, though it also meant the Ferrari was out of sight for up to thirty seconds. Curtis drove slowly, like he was driving home after a night’s drinking and wanted to avoid being pulled over. He was rattled, but the longer he drove without incident, the more confidence would return. Coombes overtook a pickup, then another two cars. He couldn’t afford to trail behind the writer on city streets.
They cut slowly across to West Hollywood and joined the 101 heading south. The Ferrari could probably hit 200 mph, but in L.A. traffic it was lucky to do 50. Almost an hour had passed and they’d learned nothing. Coombes began to close up on him. They switched to the 110, then off, onto West 4th street. They needed gas; the needle was pointing at the last line of the gauge. The traffic ground to a halt. They were directly behind Curtis now. He didn’t care if the writer knew they were there.
“He’s going to see us, Johnny.”
“I want him to see us. I’m shaking the tree.”
Above them the light changed and they moved forward again. Slow and steady, 14 mph. The Ferrari was so close that he couldn’t see the bottom of Curtis’ vehicle. No more than a shopping cart width apart now. The writer’s eyes moved between the road ahead and his rearview constantly. Coombes smiled, big enough for his teeth to show.
Next to him, Grace sighed, exasperated.
They were approaching City Hall now. In front, he saw Curtis talking in an animated manner, presumably over a hands-free cell phone. Maybe calling 911 to report his terrible driving. The idea of being pulled over by a black and white while trailing a potential serial killer amused him. Curtis finished his call and returned to the back and forth between the road and his mirrors. If he was the killer, he’d know why he was being followed.
That his pattern of kills had been identified.
Another light changed and Curtis began to slow, then stop. Coombes pulled up behind him. The writer was watching him carefully in his rearview. As soon as he stopped, Curtis hit the gas. In less than a second, he crossed the intersection. A second after that, the intersection was filled with vehicles from the cross street. In the gaps between passing cars Coombes saw that the Ferrari had disappeared. Grace snorted.
“You kind of had that coming, Johnny.”
Coombes said nothing. He didn’t care that much. The whole point of the exercise was to let Curtis know that they were on to him so that he’d start to panic, maybe make some mistakes. Because so far, he was doing a fine job running a masterclass in the perfect crime. The next step would be to bring him in and question him, now that he was softened up.
When they got back underway there was no sign of the Ferrari. There was nothing else to do but return to base and figure out the best approach for taking another run at Curtis. They continued on in silence for several minutes. It wasn’t unusual for Grace to be quiet, but this time he sensed judgement. In her eyes, he’d made a fool of himself, of both of them, and she wasn’t happy.
His cell phone rang. “Coombes.”
“This is Block. What’s your current location?”
“We’re a minute out. Curtis gave us the slip.”
“What a coincidence. He’s sitting in my office.”
“He lawyered up?”
“That’s right. There’s some kind of recording, you know the deal. Get back here and have Sato set up a laptop in the meeting room and let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
“You got it.”
Coombes disconnected and brought Grace up to speed while he parked. A recording. He knew what that meant, Jake Curtis had an alibi. Which in turn meant they were back to square one with no suspects. He found that he wasn’t at all surprised. When something was too good to be true, it usually was. His mood nosedived anyway. He wanted it to be Curtis, it was like a hunger he couldn’t feed.
