The Dark Halo, page 8
“At this point I’m wondering if we’ll get to keep it.”
“FBI or Block?”
He never answered. The doors slid silently open. The elevator opened directly inside the penthouse, and into a large reception room. At least twenty uniformed cops filled the space, apparently having gone to see the dead actress. Many of them were holding cell phones, their faces bright and animated.
“Hey!” Coombes shouted. “Get the fuck out of here! This is a crime scene, not a Lakers game. Someone is dead, show some goddamn respect.”
Heads turned toward him, assessing his suit and then Sato. They didn’t have to say what they were thinking, it was all over their faces. He knew well enough what it was like to be on the other side of a visit by RHD, giving orders.
“And I better not see anything posted online, or it’s your badge.”
They filed silently past, seething with anger. Only a third of them fitted inside the elevator at once and Coombes decided to stand and wait until they were all gone.
“Bloody tourists,” he said. Sato was staring at him. “What?”
“You’re fearless, Johnny. I could never have done that.”
Coombes shrugged and walked on, Sato falling into step next to him. The floor was made of large high-gloss tiles and even without bending down he could see the shoe marks of all the cops that had walked through already. The room was beyond contaminated, and he had to assume that the crime scene where the actress was would be no different.
They entered a media room with a huge television and plush leather chairs. There was a low coffee table with a glass top, but it wasn’t coffee on it, it was cocaine. Three bags of it, each as large as Sato’s fist and next to them, a mirror with a partially rolled bill on top. A forensic technician was in the process of photographing the table and he glanced around as Coombes approached. His face darkened with embarrassment.
“I know what you’re going to say, but I couldn’t stop them. It was like a stampede. Soon as word got out it was Haylee, all bets were off.”
“Where is she?”
“In the next room. Wear a mask, she’s been there a while.”
“Did you process the crime scene before it turned into Union Station?”
The man shook his head.
“We just got started. Photographed it, that’s all. My partner’s still in there but the trace evidence is probably worthless. None of those guys wore gloves or shoe protectors, and her boyfriend and responding officers had already been through there.”
Coombes sighed. It was hard for him to be angry at the prospect of the FBI stealing his case, when his own team behaved so unprofessionally.
“What about the boyfriend?”
“He’s in the bedroom.”
Coombes nodded his thanks and walked toward the next door. Three boxes sat on the floor, all virtually untouched. Gloves, shoe protectors, masks. He and Sato put them on. To his surprise, the crime scene was not a bathroom, but a living area with another television, a bar area, and the hot tub mentioned in the dispatch. The smell hit him immediately and he pinched the top of the mask in tighter around his nose in an attempt to keep it out.
Haylee Jordan lay face down in the water. The hot tub was still on, water frothing around her naked body. In life, Haylee had been beautiful, her face appearing on magazine covers and an all-you-can-eat stream of news stories on the internet. Her wealth and status were built on her looks, famous family, and her loud mouth. Her abilities as an actress, not so much. Coombes had no time for reality shows, or the vacuous opinion that people like Haylee shoved down America’s throat, but none of that mattered.
The way he saw it, she was someone’s little girl and he was going to catch the person responsible for this and make them pay.
“I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s too damn late.”
Coombes turned and saw a woman in white coveralls. The hood was pulled up around her head, cinched in tight around her face which had a mask over it. He realized she was talking about the shoe protectors and gloves.
“Those mouth-breathers are nothing to do with us.”
“I guessed that much, Detective.”
Coombes walked around the hot tub, keeping his breath shallow so as not to draw in too much air. The exposed side of the actress was already decomposing and the side in the hot bubbling water wouldn’t be any better.
The tub was partially sunk into a raised deck and was octagonal, at the corners was a triangular space. On the left side triangle was an open straight-edge razor; on the right, a television remote control, an empty cocktail glass, and two silver dollars.
He stepped back, aligning himself so the tub was centered in front of him. The razor, the tub, the view of Los Angeles through the window beyond, and the cocktail glass. Another tableau from their killer. Suicide by slit wrists. He took a couple of photographs on his cell phone for quick reference, then moved closer again, looked down into the water and frowned.
“Where’s the blood?”
He was talking to himself, but the woman in coveralls answered.
“Tub cleans the water while it’s running. Probably took two days to clear, but it’s all gone now.”
“No kidding.”
It was a detail that the killer would not have anticipated and would doubtless find disappointing. He could imagine how the tub would’ve looked filled with bubbling blood.
Coombes saw a pair of sandals on the floor and what he took to be a satin nightdress next to them. It looked like she’d slipped out of the dress then half-kicked it to the side with one foot. He’d seen his wife do the same thing many times. It looked real, not neat and carefully positioned like the other items. The killer could have changed it, used a pair of high heels and a fashion dress from her closet to make the scene more Hollywood. Instead, he’d chosen to leave it. To let them know she got into the tub willingly, with intimacy in mind.
He thought about how it must have happened.
She would’ve got in the tub first, her back to her visitor as she lowered herself into the water. Haylee had felt safe with him, confident. That’s when he’d get the knife out his pocket, perhaps then hiding it under an item of his own clothing. He could’ve killed her at any point, but he wanted it to look like a suicide. To do that, he had to get into the water with her and hold her in place as the life drained out of her.
Anger twisted Coombes’ face under his mask.
Afterward, the killer would’ve been covered in blood. There should be a trail of it from where he’d walked across the floor, except all he could see on the polished marble was shoe prints from the cops that had walked through the scene.
The killer had cleaned the floor.
A trail of bloody footprints didn’t fit with a suicide.
“Be sure to process the bathroom and shower stall. He washed before he left.”
The forensic tech turned to him.
“Do I tell you how to kick down doors, Detective?”
“I guess not.”
“Bathroom is next.”
Sato came over, taking pains not to look at the corpse. He could tell from her eyes that she was struggling to hold it together. This one was bothering her, either because of the smell, or who the victim was, it was hard to say.
“What do you think it means, Johnny? First time he’s killed a woman, first time an African-American. It’s unusual, isn’t it? Changing victim selection like this?”
Coombes moved to the window and stood looking at downtown L.A. It was a stunning view, but he would bet his last cent that Haylee Jordan had spent more time looking in a mirror than taking in a view that had probably cost her $12 million.
“I think he’s killing people who meet some criteria, or fail some personal test. To him, these people are somehow all the same. Like they are choosing themselves as victims.”
“You aren’t seriously suggesting he doesn’t get off on this?”
“Sure, but the challenge of the act itself. That’s what he likes.”
“This is a game to him?”
“He’s laughing at us. Look out the window, what do you see?”
“Downtown. The Civic Center. Tell me.”
“Us. We could’ve walked here, Grace, this is four blocks from our house. Look,” Coombes pointed through the glass, ticking them off. “The PAB, City Hall, the DA’s Office, the US Courthouse, the Criminal Justice Centre, over there is the federal building…”
“A coincidence. This is just where his target lived.”
“Maybe. Or maybe, like a cat, he’s dropping dead bodies on our doormat to dispose of. It feels to me like the victim was chosen by location as part of his tableau.”
Sato was silent. It was how she disagreed with him, with silence.
“Let’s see what the boyfriend has to say,” he said.
On the other side of the apartment, Randall Jones was sitting on the edge of a heart-shaped bed staring into space. Jones had thick, muscular arms and wore tight sports clothes like he was about to go to the gym and work out. The ends of his sleeves were darker than the rest of his top. Still damp from being in the water.
Coombes opened his notebook and found a blank page.
“Why don’t you tell us about the last time you saw Haylee alive.”
A deliberate slow ball with no backspin, to get them started. Despite this, Jones looked at him nervously, the white of his eye visible all the way around his irises.
“It was Thursday. We had a big fight; half the crew saw it. Haylee accused me of something and didn’t want to hear my side of it. She told me we were done.”
“She broke up with you?”
“Yeah.”
The word was filled with doom. Things didn’t look good for Jones, and he knew it.
“What was it she thought you’d done?”
“She thought I was seeing someone else. A friend of mine. It wasn’t true. How do you disprove something that isn’t true? Someone got to her, twisted my friendship in her mind, she couldn’t hear my words.”
Coombes nodded, his head down as he made notes.
“Your friend’s name?”
Jones sighed. At every step he’d held a piece back, hoping not to get here, yet knowing the whole time it was pointless.
“Mike Black.”
Coombes glanced up.
“Uh, huh. What do you do, Mr. Jones?”
“Are you kidding? I’m an actor. Me and Haylee work together.”
“That show in Beverly Hills where women talk shit about each other?”
He saw fury in the other man’s eyes.
“Yeah. That show. It’s got the 14th highest ratings on US television.”
“I see. Who do you play in the show?”
“Haylee’s boyfriend.”
Coombes laughed, causing Jones extreme irritation. It looked like Sato was about to cut in, so he shot her a warning look. He was on a roll here, and didn’t want the flow interrupted with alternating questions.
“Why don’t you tell us the truth? After your bust-up on-set, you decided to come here and continue the fight. Haylee was fed up being your meal ticket and was going to have you fired. You lashed out. Happens all the time, right? Side effect of the testosterone shots for your arms. Mood swings, problems with your rage. You slap her about to make her hear you, only this time, she knocks her head against something and suddenly she’s got no pulse. She’s dead. You panic, everyone on the show saw your fight, they’ll know you did it. So you strip her, dump her in the hot tub and open her wrists. Is that about right?”
“No! None of that is right! I would never hurt her. I loved her.”
The man’s big shoulders shook as he sobbed.
It didn’t look particularly real to Coombes. If it wasn’t for the silver dollars and the staged crime scene, Jones would be prime suspect. The man was such a bad actor he couldn’t even sell something that was true. Coombes glanced at Sato who stood with her mouth hanging open, shocked, then back to Jones. He wondered where you’d get hold of a heart-shaped bed, and if they made fitted sheets for it. Not a practical shape, he thought. It was large, with only a small usable space in the middle to sleep on.
His wife would push him right out onto the floor, no question.
“Say I believe you, Mr. Jones. Who else knew the code for the elevator?”
“She had parties all the time, everyone on the show knew the code.”
“You think one of them killed her?”
“No way, without her there’s no show. She’s the heart of it.”
“Then we’re back to you?”
“Oh Jesus. I didn’t kill her. Lots of people had her code, that’s what I’m saying. It’s the last four digits of her cell number, it’s the only way she could remember. She never worried about security. There are cameras everywhere and a guy in the lobby 24-7. Her whole life was public. The show, her parents, she didn’t…she didn’t see things the same way.”
Randall Jones’ face became tight.
“What does that mean, Mr. Jones?”
Jones hands formed into fists between his knees.
“She had a fantasy a fan would come here while she was sleeping. Tie her up, gag her, do things to her, you know? Sex stuff. She liked all that. Loss of control, danger. It excited her.”
“Did she ask you to roleplay that for her?”
Jones’ head dropped and he stared at the floor. “Yeah.”
“How did you like that?”
“I didn’t. She was imagining having sex with someone else while she was having sex with me. It wasn’t sexy. She would beg me to stop, tell me I was hurting her, the whole routine. It was messed up and it got old fast. I did it because she liked it, because I loved her.”
“How often did she ask you to do this?”
“Since August? Every time we made love. After the first time, it was the only way she wanted it. I thought she’d get bored with it and move on if I waited long enough.”
Coombes had never heard a man say made love before and he made a note of it. He got to the bottom of the page and turned to a new one.
His handwriting was getting worse, it was almost illegible.
“You have your own place, Mr. Jones?”
“Yeah, and it’s nothing like this.”
“How often were you here?”
“Three, maybe four times a week.”
Coombes was silent a beat.
“Which was it usually? Three or four?”
“Three.”
“You ever think she was seeing someone else those other days?”
Jones’ face pinched with pain like he’d been shot through the heart. He looked away. For all the strength in his body, he couldn’t say the words out loud.
“Do you think she broke up with you to be with someone else?”
Jones nodded.
“I came here to confront her. I thought there was going to be a guy here, I thought-” Jones paused to recompose himself. “Anyway, I got out the elevator and the apartment was silent, the lights in the outer room off. They were never off, not even when she was out of state. I looked in the bedroom first, I had to know if she was there with some guy. It was empty, so I go through the rest of the apartment. I saw she’d been hitting the coke. She swore blind she’d kicked that stuff last year, but there it was. I stood looking at it, wondering if that was why she was being so paranoid, and I smell something weird. Something disgusting. I follow it into the next room and there she was in the hot tub. I didn’t figure it right away, that she was what I was smelling, I didn’t even know that thing was her. I touched it, I turned it over, saw her face. Oh Jesus, her beautiful face, it’s gone.”
Coombes let him get a grip of himself before he spoke again.
“All right, Randall, we’re nearly done. Any idea who she might’ve been dating? Someone on the show, someone new hanging around that you hadn’t seen before? A Hollywood-type?”
Jones shook his head. “If there was someone else, I never figured out who it was and I looked.”
He nodded and took Jones’ contact details then gave him his business card in case he thought of anything. He walked back to the elevator, Sato trailing behind him.
“I didn’t recognize you in there, Johnny.”
“I disgusted you.”
“Yes.”
They got on the elevator and he hit the button for the first floor. Coombes watched the floor numbers change, his focus fixed on the panel.
“He was closed down, my questions opened him up. It’s not our job to be anyone’s friend. He was holding details back through the whole interview. Sometimes you have to stand on a few toes to get people to open their mouth.”
Sato was silent all the way to the first floor.
12
Most of the sour-faced cops he’d rousted from Haylee Jordan’s apartment were milling about the lobby area like they were waiting for him to leave so that they could go back up. They glared at him all over again. While they watched, he went over to the rookie with the list of names and badge numbers and took a picture of it with his cell phone. It was pretty easy for a list like that to go missing, so he wanted to cover his bases. One of the uniforms held his nose, a gesture normally saved for a cop who has betrayed another to Internal Affairs.
The atmosphere was highly charged and Sato moved with him like a shadow as they walked to the front desk. A large man wearing a security guard costume stood waiting for him, a happy smile on his face. Coombes guessed from looking at him that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box.
“What’s your name?”
“Huck.”
“No shit. Take a seat, Huck, we have questions for you.”
The man sat back down in his chair. He looked between Coombes and Sato, apparently puzzled by their serious faces, like the death of his top guest didn’t justify that on its own.
“Explain to me how the security here normally works.”
“How’d you mean?”
