The Dark Halo, page 9
“Say I’d come to see Haylee. Do I talk to you first?”
Huck cracked a smile. “No…”
“You don’t control who gets in or out?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Detective. Haylee had people coming and going all the time. Friends, family, business. It was impossible to keep track of everyone and it’s not really my job. I figure if they know her code for the elevator then they’re meant to be there.”
“Wait,” Coombes said. “What is your job?”
“Building security.”
“Isn’t keeping track of people exactly your job?”
The man’s happy-go-lucky act vanished, his face hardening.
“This is a private residence, not a prison.”
“The elevator opens inside her apartment. You’re letting anyone in off the street and you don’t see a problem? Even if she knows the person, she could be asleep, or in the shower. Aren’t you meant to call up when she has a guest?”
The guard’s head pitched from side to side.
“We’re supposed to call, but Haylee didn’t want that. She got so many visitors that answering the internal line became a hassle, so she told us not to bother. Anyway, there’s a lock-out on the elevator in her apartment. When activated, the elevator won’t accept her code. That’s her security, not me, not her pin code, not the cameras. The lock-out keeps people in the lobby.”
Sato leaned in over the counter.
“Does your computer log when owners apply the lock-out?”
“Yeah, hang on.” He poked at his keyboard with one finger. After a couple of seconds, he sat back, a heavy line across his forehead.
“She never used it, did she?” Coombes said.
“Apparently not.”
He thought about what Randall Jones had told him about her fantasy, and her love of danger. Someone had come for her, just as she’d always wanted, but it didn’t turn out the way she’d imagined. In her final moments, she would’ve known that she’d brought it on herself.
“All right,” Coombes said. “We need a print-out of every time someone entered her number into the elevator for the last seven days. Then we need security footage coinciding with those times.”
“Oh, man. That will take forever.”
“A woman is dead.”
The guard looked up at him, confused.
“She killed herself, didn’t she?”
Coombes shook his head marginally from side to side. The man got it then, his eyes opening wide. It was the appeal of suicide, he thought. As soon as you think it’s not murder you immediately relax. With murder, it could be you next.
“How many cameras do you have here?”
“One above the main entrance facing the sidewalk, three in the lobby, three in the parking garage, and one covering the entrance and exit to the garage.”
“Motion-activated, or always on?”
“Always on. Look, don’t get excited. The system is 40 years old and the resolution is about the same as a VHS tape. There’s no infra-red, so it’s worse at night.”
“Haylee’s boyfriend said she relied on those cameras to keep her safe and you’re telling me that they’re basically just for show?”
The guard’s face turned red, either with anger or embarrassment.
“Camera upgrades have been blocked by the board of residents every year for the last decade. Maybe now they’ll change their minds, but that’s not on me.”
“Fair enough. How long to pull the footage together?”
“Half an hour, maybe less. I never did what you asked before.”
“I’ll let you get right on it then.”
As he stepped back into the main lobby area his cell phone beeped. A text message. He saw it was from Gantz and simply said CALL. The display of his iPhone showed one bar. It likely meant that his cell had lost service while he was inside the security station and she had been unable to connect. He moved closer to the entrance and called her back.
“John, where are you?”
“Still at Haylee Jordan’s building.”
“Should I assume that she fits the pattern?”
“Yeah. Our friend left us the usual pocket change.”
Gantz sighed.
“Well, that’s why I called. The TV networks have been looping a clip of you entering that building for the last 20 minutes. The press has it, John. You’re officially working a serial killer case, congratulations. Get back here as soon as you can, we’re going to build a team. Block’s all in. Whatever it takes, he says. Chief’s promising to suspend the overtime cap.”
Coombes had never led a team before and his back stiffened.
“Is it still mine, Ellen?”
“A hundred percent. We’re only where we are because of you.”
She disconnected and his focus drifted through the doorway into the street beyond. The crowd had doubled in size since they’d arrived. As he watched, a small section broke away to surround his Dodge. A white sheet opened out between them with a message written on it.
JUSTICE 4 HAYLEE.
He decided to check the parking garage while they waited.
13
Block was waiting for them with Gantz in her office. It looked like he’d been there a while and that neither of them was too pleased about it. The office was hot and the captain’s face was pink, his stiff shirt collar appearing to bite into his fleshy neck. Coombes held his hands up in a calming gesture as he came through the door.
“Sorry. We were waiting for security video, took a little longer than anticipated. It should have the killer on it so we wanted to get hold of it as soon as possible.”
Block was still bristling, but his chest was slowly deflating.
“You think we’ll be able to pull an ID off it?”
Coombes took off his suit jacket and began to roll up his sleeves. He figured Block for the type that would associate this action with getting a job done.
“The security system is from a period when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Most likely, the killer’s own mother won’t recognize his face. I’m hopeful we’ll get a partial description, which is still more than we have at the moment.”
He found himself thinking about Curtis’ beard.
No matter how bad the resolution, it would show up on camera.
“That’s too bad, Coombes,” Block said. “We need to get out in front of this, the coverage is already wall-to-wall. This is national now, maybe international. Haylee Jordan was a big deal; people are going to expect results.”
He wondered if he should tell Block about the contamination of the crime scene but decided against it for now. He’d mention it to Gantz when he had her alone.
“Ironically, the age of the camera system might help us out. Previously, the killer glitched the system at the hotel somehow. He’s smart, knows technology. But this system is so old that this won’t have been possible. We’ll see the killer, just not very clearly.”
“All right. Now, the task force. Chief Jackson has authorized three teams of detectives to work the case, plus as many uniforms as you want for donkey work. It’s your case so you and Sato will lead, with Wallfisch and McCreary, and Davis and Newman.”
Coombes glanced at Gantz and saw from her face that she played no part in the choices. Wallfisch and McCreary were idiots pure and simple, and worse, Wallfisch was the same rank he was so the chain-of-command within the team would not be clear.
“I was thinking of Becker and Gonzalez.”
Block made a face. “Becker’s past it. He’s four months from retirement.”
“Becker worked on Night Stalker and Grim Sleeper. He’s the only detective in RHD with experience working a serial. Gonzalez is good with technology and is also, I hate to say it, a woman of color. All your picks are white men except Sato.”
The room became painfully silent and Coombes was careful to avoid looking at either of the women, his focus fixed on Block whose eyebrows were knitted together.
“Shit, you’re right. Okay, Becker and Gonzalez instead of Davis and Newman.”
It was clear he wasn’t getting rid of Wallfisch.
He turned to Gantz. “Anything else?”
“The meeting room has been upgraded to a command post. Laptops, whiteboard, television, phone lines. Did I mention the tip line? That’s already up and running, news channels are showing the number. Hopefully we’ll make the coverage worth something.”
Coombes could imagine the crazies who were likely to call in with tips, and what they were worth to the investigation. They’d probably spent the morning waving a sheet demanding justice.
“If that’s everything-”
“It’s not,” Block said. “You’re scheduled to address the media downstairs at 2 p.m. and I think you can expect it to be well-attended. People are losing their minds over this and I need you to calm things down. You need to communicate that we have this under control and that the LAPD is taking it seriously. I want people to think that you’re close to arresting someone. Serial killers are bad for business and Christmas is almost here. Am I clear?”
“I’ll see what I can do, Captain.”
The meeting broke up and he and Sato left the room. As they walked back to their desks, she grabbed his elbow and spun him around.
“That’s how you see me? Included for representation?”
“He’s a politician, Grace. I spoke to him in a way he understood. You’re the best damn cop I ever worked with, not to mention my best friend.”
“I’m your only friend, Johnny.”
He shrugged.
“Best and only friend.”
Her head was tilted back to look at him and her lips had opened, the tips of her teeth showing. He glanced at her mouth and after a second, he saw a smile spread across it.
The task force room, as it now was, had three laptops set up on either side of the large rectangular table that only hours before had been covered in Vandenberg’s mail. Another table had been added to the back wall and above that, a huge television.
Wallfisch and McCreary walked in and sat without turning their heads to acknowledge him. The way the room was structured, this took a lot of effort and it told him all he needed to know about the two detectives. Either they didn’t want to be here, or else they thought they should be in charge. Of the two, he thought the second was more likely. It had taken him 14 years less time than Wallfisch to make D-III and it burned the other man like napalm.
Coombes turned to Becker.
“Mark, I understand you’re due to come off rotation. Is this a problem?”
Becker glanced at Gonzalez and back.
“Are you kidding me? The chance to work another serial? We’re good, John. One hundred percent, you got nothing to worry about.”
“All right. Depending on how long this takes, we’re going to have to figure out a way to have days off or we’ll all get burned out. You two will be at the top of the list.”
“Appreciated.”
“I’ll bring everyone up to date with the case in a moment. First, we’ve got security footage from Jordan’s apartment that I want to look at, see if there’s anything we can use. Block has arranged a press conference for 2 p.m. and I’m pretty low on good news.”
They all nodded, except for Wallfisch and McCreary, who glared at him like teenagers. He sat in front of one of the laptops and plugged in the thumb drive. It was a 15-inch laptop, they wouldn’t all be able to see.
“Anybody know how to use the big screen?”
“I got it,” Gonzalez said.
He moved to the side and she leaned in, setting up the laptop. Up on the big screen, there was a burst of light, then the layout of his desktop icons and his cursor appeared. Like Wallfisch, the screen was large and not very bright. He saw that Sato was already at the light switches. He nodded and the overhead lights shut down.
Coombes opened the thumb drive and pulled up the files.
According to the print-out the security guard had provided, the last time Jordan’s elevator code was used prior to Randall Jones arrival, was at 10:34 on Friday night. He brought up the security clips that the guard had put together and played them back in the reverse order he expected to find anything, saving the parking garage cameras and the back of the lobby camera for last. Sure enough, all the other clips were clear. He pulled up the clip covering the entrance to the garage. The camera was positioned to capture the face and license plate of someone driving in, but nobody drove in. He walked.
“Here we go,” Coombes said.
The camera didn’t get much, it wasn’t optimized for pedestrians walking on the sidewalk and ducking down under the control barrier on the road. The man was on-screen for less than two seconds and he was wearing a hooded top. He rested his hand on top of the barrier, but it appeared that he was wearing dark gloves.
It was useless.
There was a tense silence in the room as Coombes cued up the next clip, taken from next to the stairwell, pointing back at the entrance. They saw the figure duck under from the other side and walk straight toward the camera. The garage was lit by fluorescent tubes spaced wide apart, the light level on screen poor. The killer was well-built and rolled his shoulders from side to side like a boxer as he walked.
Muscular, like Randall Jones.
It occurred to Coombes that the killer might have dressed and walked in a way likely to implicate the actor, perhaps even selecting clothes he knew Jones owned. If true, it would mean that the killer had spent time on-set and might be familiar to the rest of the cast.
The figure was half-way down the screen now.
Each time he approached one of the fluorescent tubes he dipped his head forward and walked with his eyes down by his feet, before coming up again. His hooded top cast a shadow across his face, lighting only the tip of his nose. Coombes turned between the smaller higher-resolution image on his laptop, and the screen that filled the opposite wall. Looking for something, anything.
He couldn’t even see a beard.
“He’s jerking us off,” Wallfisch said.
Coombes nodded in the dark. “You got that right.”
The rest of the clip was no better. The killer walked right up under the camera position, his head lowered, and entered the stairwell that led up to the first-floor lobby.
Coombes closed the clip and the room became dark while he cued up the first-floor lobby camera. Compared with the parking garage, the clip was brightly lit. To his astonishment, the camera was so badly positioned that when the door from the parking garage opened it obscured the camera in the lobby until the door closer pulled the door shut automatically. As the door cleared the shot, all they saw was the killer half-on, half-off the elevator which had been sitting waiting. There were groans from around the room.
“Goddammit!” Coombes said.
He scrubbed the slider forward and back, but it got him nothing. All they had was a left hand swinging back with no wedding band, a pair of blue jeans, and some sneakers. Coombes didn’t bother viewing the inactive cameras for the next batch of recordings, which were timed at around 12:45, Saturday morning. He assumed the killer would exit the same way he entered, and he wasn’t wrong.
Walking backward, using a raised cell phone to see behind him, the killer exited the way he had arrived via the door to the parking garage. It looked like the previous video being run in reverse. The door opened, cutting off the camera as the killer left.
“Son of a bitch,” Becker said.
“That guy knew exactly where the cameras were, Coombes.”
The playback froze onscreen and he stared at Wallfisch.
“He’s been there before,” Coombes said. “Knows the code for the elevator, the placement of the cameras, the angles. He knows her. An old friend, a lover, whatever.”
Wallfisch nodded his fleshy head in the gloom.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“So, there’s going to be older footage where he doesn’t hide his face? Maybe even looking up at the camera to see where it is.”
Wallfisch paused, sensing a trap. “I guess that follows.”
“That’s a good lead, Tommy. As soon as the press conference ends, I want you and Don to go back to her apartment building and scoop up all footage like this going back three months. Then I want you to isolate every man that uses her elevator code and use these clips as a baseline for comparison.”
“Coombes, you can’t be serious. That’ll take days.”
“Maybe we should go back six months to be on the safe side?”
The room was silent while he and Wallfisch stared at each other in the half-dark. He couldn’t back down. He had to put down a marker to show who was in charge so there could be no doubt. Not for the first time, Coombes evaluated the other man’s fighting capacity. Wallfisch carried a lot of weight and there was an outside chance that there could be muscle under it somewhere. He got ready to kick the chair back and stand, in case Wallfisch charged him down.
“He was in her apartment for over two hours. Doing what?”
It was Sato, still standing by the light switch. Her words caused the tension to dissipate. If she ever got bored being a detective, she could transfer to the bomb squad.
“I think he brought the cocaine. Haylee had broken up with her boyfriend and might’ve been in the mood to celebrate, or take her mind off things. Let’s say they got high together. She was an addict, perhaps he was her supplier from way back and that’s how he knows her code. After a while, they decide to continue their evening in the hot tub where, instead of making out, he guts her like a tuna. Her blood should’ve been all over the window and across the floor, but it wasn’t, so I’m guessing he held her under the water until she was empty.”
Silence returned to the room for a long moment.
“I have a suggestion for you, Johnny,” said Gonzales. “If it comes up at the press conference, don’t say any of that. Literally, none of it. Not unless you want to see Block’s head explode and four million Angelenos assemble outside this building carrying pitchforks.”
“Duly noted.”
Coombes started the last clip, of the killer leaving through the parking garage. His shoulders rolled from side to side as before, like a wannabe gangster. Like Jake Curtis had as he left their office the week before. The killer was less than two feet from the concrete above.
Huck cracked a smile. “No…”
“You don’t control who gets in or out?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Detective. Haylee had people coming and going all the time. Friends, family, business. It was impossible to keep track of everyone and it’s not really my job. I figure if they know her code for the elevator then they’re meant to be there.”
“Wait,” Coombes said. “What is your job?”
“Building security.”
“Isn’t keeping track of people exactly your job?”
The man’s happy-go-lucky act vanished, his face hardening.
“This is a private residence, not a prison.”
“The elevator opens inside her apartment. You’re letting anyone in off the street and you don’t see a problem? Even if she knows the person, she could be asleep, or in the shower. Aren’t you meant to call up when she has a guest?”
The guard’s head pitched from side to side.
“We’re supposed to call, but Haylee didn’t want that. She got so many visitors that answering the internal line became a hassle, so she told us not to bother. Anyway, there’s a lock-out on the elevator in her apartment. When activated, the elevator won’t accept her code. That’s her security, not me, not her pin code, not the cameras. The lock-out keeps people in the lobby.”
Sato leaned in over the counter.
“Does your computer log when owners apply the lock-out?”
“Yeah, hang on.” He poked at his keyboard with one finger. After a couple of seconds, he sat back, a heavy line across his forehead.
“She never used it, did she?” Coombes said.
“Apparently not.”
He thought about what Randall Jones had told him about her fantasy, and her love of danger. Someone had come for her, just as she’d always wanted, but it didn’t turn out the way she’d imagined. In her final moments, she would’ve known that she’d brought it on herself.
“All right,” Coombes said. “We need a print-out of every time someone entered her number into the elevator for the last seven days. Then we need security footage coinciding with those times.”
“Oh, man. That will take forever.”
“A woman is dead.”
The guard looked up at him, confused.
“She killed herself, didn’t she?”
Coombes shook his head marginally from side to side. The man got it then, his eyes opening wide. It was the appeal of suicide, he thought. As soon as you think it’s not murder you immediately relax. With murder, it could be you next.
“How many cameras do you have here?”
“One above the main entrance facing the sidewalk, three in the lobby, three in the parking garage, and one covering the entrance and exit to the garage.”
“Motion-activated, or always on?”
“Always on. Look, don’t get excited. The system is 40 years old and the resolution is about the same as a VHS tape. There’s no infra-red, so it’s worse at night.”
“Haylee’s boyfriend said she relied on those cameras to keep her safe and you’re telling me that they’re basically just for show?”
The guard’s face turned red, either with anger or embarrassment.
“Camera upgrades have been blocked by the board of residents every year for the last decade. Maybe now they’ll change their minds, but that’s not on me.”
“Fair enough. How long to pull the footage together?”
“Half an hour, maybe less. I never did what you asked before.”
“I’ll let you get right on it then.”
As he stepped back into the main lobby area his cell phone beeped. A text message. He saw it was from Gantz and simply said CALL. The display of his iPhone showed one bar. It likely meant that his cell had lost service while he was inside the security station and she had been unable to connect. He moved closer to the entrance and called her back.
“John, where are you?”
“Still at Haylee Jordan’s building.”
“Should I assume that she fits the pattern?”
“Yeah. Our friend left us the usual pocket change.”
Gantz sighed.
“Well, that’s why I called. The TV networks have been looping a clip of you entering that building for the last 20 minutes. The press has it, John. You’re officially working a serial killer case, congratulations. Get back here as soon as you can, we’re going to build a team. Block’s all in. Whatever it takes, he says. Chief’s promising to suspend the overtime cap.”
Coombes had never led a team before and his back stiffened.
“Is it still mine, Ellen?”
“A hundred percent. We’re only where we are because of you.”
She disconnected and his focus drifted through the doorway into the street beyond. The crowd had doubled in size since they’d arrived. As he watched, a small section broke away to surround his Dodge. A white sheet opened out between them with a message written on it.
JUSTICE 4 HAYLEE.
He decided to check the parking garage while they waited.
13
Block was waiting for them with Gantz in her office. It looked like he’d been there a while and that neither of them was too pleased about it. The office was hot and the captain’s face was pink, his stiff shirt collar appearing to bite into his fleshy neck. Coombes held his hands up in a calming gesture as he came through the door.
“Sorry. We were waiting for security video, took a little longer than anticipated. It should have the killer on it so we wanted to get hold of it as soon as possible.”
Block was still bristling, but his chest was slowly deflating.
“You think we’ll be able to pull an ID off it?”
Coombes took off his suit jacket and began to roll up his sleeves. He figured Block for the type that would associate this action with getting a job done.
“The security system is from a period when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Most likely, the killer’s own mother won’t recognize his face. I’m hopeful we’ll get a partial description, which is still more than we have at the moment.”
He found himself thinking about Curtis’ beard.
No matter how bad the resolution, it would show up on camera.
“That’s too bad, Coombes,” Block said. “We need to get out in front of this, the coverage is already wall-to-wall. This is national now, maybe international. Haylee Jordan was a big deal; people are going to expect results.”
He wondered if he should tell Block about the contamination of the crime scene but decided against it for now. He’d mention it to Gantz when he had her alone.
“Ironically, the age of the camera system might help us out. Previously, the killer glitched the system at the hotel somehow. He’s smart, knows technology. But this system is so old that this won’t have been possible. We’ll see the killer, just not very clearly.”
“All right. Now, the task force. Chief Jackson has authorized three teams of detectives to work the case, plus as many uniforms as you want for donkey work. It’s your case so you and Sato will lead, with Wallfisch and McCreary, and Davis and Newman.”
Coombes glanced at Gantz and saw from her face that she played no part in the choices. Wallfisch and McCreary were idiots pure and simple, and worse, Wallfisch was the same rank he was so the chain-of-command within the team would not be clear.
“I was thinking of Becker and Gonzalez.”
Block made a face. “Becker’s past it. He’s four months from retirement.”
“Becker worked on Night Stalker and Grim Sleeper. He’s the only detective in RHD with experience working a serial. Gonzalez is good with technology and is also, I hate to say it, a woman of color. All your picks are white men except Sato.”
The room became painfully silent and Coombes was careful to avoid looking at either of the women, his focus fixed on Block whose eyebrows were knitted together.
“Shit, you’re right. Okay, Becker and Gonzalez instead of Davis and Newman.”
It was clear he wasn’t getting rid of Wallfisch.
He turned to Gantz. “Anything else?”
“The meeting room has been upgraded to a command post. Laptops, whiteboard, television, phone lines. Did I mention the tip line? That’s already up and running, news channels are showing the number. Hopefully we’ll make the coverage worth something.”
Coombes could imagine the crazies who were likely to call in with tips, and what they were worth to the investigation. They’d probably spent the morning waving a sheet demanding justice.
“If that’s everything-”
“It’s not,” Block said. “You’re scheduled to address the media downstairs at 2 p.m. and I think you can expect it to be well-attended. People are losing their minds over this and I need you to calm things down. You need to communicate that we have this under control and that the LAPD is taking it seriously. I want people to think that you’re close to arresting someone. Serial killers are bad for business and Christmas is almost here. Am I clear?”
“I’ll see what I can do, Captain.”
The meeting broke up and he and Sato left the room. As they walked back to their desks, she grabbed his elbow and spun him around.
“That’s how you see me? Included for representation?”
“He’s a politician, Grace. I spoke to him in a way he understood. You’re the best damn cop I ever worked with, not to mention my best friend.”
“I’m your only friend, Johnny.”
He shrugged.
“Best and only friend.”
Her head was tilted back to look at him and her lips had opened, the tips of her teeth showing. He glanced at her mouth and after a second, he saw a smile spread across it.
The task force room, as it now was, had three laptops set up on either side of the large rectangular table that only hours before had been covered in Vandenberg’s mail. Another table had been added to the back wall and above that, a huge television.
Wallfisch and McCreary walked in and sat without turning their heads to acknowledge him. The way the room was structured, this took a lot of effort and it told him all he needed to know about the two detectives. Either they didn’t want to be here, or else they thought they should be in charge. Of the two, he thought the second was more likely. It had taken him 14 years less time than Wallfisch to make D-III and it burned the other man like napalm.
Coombes turned to Becker.
“Mark, I understand you’re due to come off rotation. Is this a problem?”
Becker glanced at Gonzalez and back.
“Are you kidding me? The chance to work another serial? We’re good, John. One hundred percent, you got nothing to worry about.”
“All right. Depending on how long this takes, we’re going to have to figure out a way to have days off or we’ll all get burned out. You two will be at the top of the list.”
“Appreciated.”
“I’ll bring everyone up to date with the case in a moment. First, we’ve got security footage from Jordan’s apartment that I want to look at, see if there’s anything we can use. Block has arranged a press conference for 2 p.m. and I’m pretty low on good news.”
They all nodded, except for Wallfisch and McCreary, who glared at him like teenagers. He sat in front of one of the laptops and plugged in the thumb drive. It was a 15-inch laptop, they wouldn’t all be able to see.
“Anybody know how to use the big screen?”
“I got it,” Gonzalez said.
He moved to the side and she leaned in, setting up the laptop. Up on the big screen, there was a burst of light, then the layout of his desktop icons and his cursor appeared. Like Wallfisch, the screen was large and not very bright. He saw that Sato was already at the light switches. He nodded and the overhead lights shut down.
Coombes opened the thumb drive and pulled up the files.
According to the print-out the security guard had provided, the last time Jordan’s elevator code was used prior to Randall Jones arrival, was at 10:34 on Friday night. He brought up the security clips that the guard had put together and played them back in the reverse order he expected to find anything, saving the parking garage cameras and the back of the lobby camera for last. Sure enough, all the other clips were clear. He pulled up the clip covering the entrance to the garage. The camera was positioned to capture the face and license plate of someone driving in, but nobody drove in. He walked.
“Here we go,” Coombes said.
The camera didn’t get much, it wasn’t optimized for pedestrians walking on the sidewalk and ducking down under the control barrier on the road. The man was on-screen for less than two seconds and he was wearing a hooded top. He rested his hand on top of the barrier, but it appeared that he was wearing dark gloves.
It was useless.
There was a tense silence in the room as Coombes cued up the next clip, taken from next to the stairwell, pointing back at the entrance. They saw the figure duck under from the other side and walk straight toward the camera. The garage was lit by fluorescent tubes spaced wide apart, the light level on screen poor. The killer was well-built and rolled his shoulders from side to side like a boxer as he walked.
Muscular, like Randall Jones.
It occurred to Coombes that the killer might have dressed and walked in a way likely to implicate the actor, perhaps even selecting clothes he knew Jones owned. If true, it would mean that the killer had spent time on-set and might be familiar to the rest of the cast.
The figure was half-way down the screen now.
Each time he approached one of the fluorescent tubes he dipped his head forward and walked with his eyes down by his feet, before coming up again. His hooded top cast a shadow across his face, lighting only the tip of his nose. Coombes turned between the smaller higher-resolution image on his laptop, and the screen that filled the opposite wall. Looking for something, anything.
He couldn’t even see a beard.
“He’s jerking us off,” Wallfisch said.
Coombes nodded in the dark. “You got that right.”
The rest of the clip was no better. The killer walked right up under the camera position, his head lowered, and entered the stairwell that led up to the first-floor lobby.
Coombes closed the clip and the room became dark while he cued up the first-floor lobby camera. Compared with the parking garage, the clip was brightly lit. To his astonishment, the camera was so badly positioned that when the door from the parking garage opened it obscured the camera in the lobby until the door closer pulled the door shut automatically. As the door cleared the shot, all they saw was the killer half-on, half-off the elevator which had been sitting waiting. There were groans from around the room.
“Goddammit!” Coombes said.
He scrubbed the slider forward and back, but it got him nothing. All they had was a left hand swinging back with no wedding band, a pair of blue jeans, and some sneakers. Coombes didn’t bother viewing the inactive cameras for the next batch of recordings, which were timed at around 12:45, Saturday morning. He assumed the killer would exit the same way he entered, and he wasn’t wrong.
Walking backward, using a raised cell phone to see behind him, the killer exited the way he had arrived via the door to the parking garage. It looked like the previous video being run in reverse. The door opened, cutting off the camera as the killer left.
“Son of a bitch,” Becker said.
“That guy knew exactly where the cameras were, Coombes.”
The playback froze onscreen and he stared at Wallfisch.
“He’s been there before,” Coombes said. “Knows the code for the elevator, the placement of the cameras, the angles. He knows her. An old friend, a lover, whatever.”
Wallfisch nodded his fleshy head in the gloom.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“So, there’s going to be older footage where he doesn’t hide his face? Maybe even looking up at the camera to see where it is.”
Wallfisch paused, sensing a trap. “I guess that follows.”
“That’s a good lead, Tommy. As soon as the press conference ends, I want you and Don to go back to her apartment building and scoop up all footage like this going back three months. Then I want you to isolate every man that uses her elevator code and use these clips as a baseline for comparison.”
“Coombes, you can’t be serious. That’ll take days.”
“Maybe we should go back six months to be on the safe side?”
The room was silent while he and Wallfisch stared at each other in the half-dark. He couldn’t back down. He had to put down a marker to show who was in charge so there could be no doubt. Not for the first time, Coombes evaluated the other man’s fighting capacity. Wallfisch carried a lot of weight and there was an outside chance that there could be muscle under it somewhere. He got ready to kick the chair back and stand, in case Wallfisch charged him down.
“He was in her apartment for over two hours. Doing what?”
It was Sato, still standing by the light switch. Her words caused the tension to dissipate. If she ever got bored being a detective, she could transfer to the bomb squad.
“I think he brought the cocaine. Haylee had broken up with her boyfriend and might’ve been in the mood to celebrate, or take her mind off things. Let’s say they got high together. She was an addict, perhaps he was her supplier from way back and that’s how he knows her code. After a while, they decide to continue their evening in the hot tub where, instead of making out, he guts her like a tuna. Her blood should’ve been all over the window and across the floor, but it wasn’t, so I’m guessing he held her under the water until she was empty.”
Silence returned to the room for a long moment.
“I have a suggestion for you, Johnny,” said Gonzales. “If it comes up at the press conference, don’t say any of that. Literally, none of it. Not unless you want to see Block’s head explode and four million Angelenos assemble outside this building carrying pitchforks.”
“Duly noted.”
Coombes started the last clip, of the killer leaving through the parking garage. His shoulders rolled from side to side as before, like a wannabe gangster. Like Jake Curtis had as he left their office the week before. The killer was less than two feet from the concrete above.
