City of Saviors, page 27
I brought the Motorola radio to my mouth and asked, “What’s happening now?”
MacKenzie, the undercover cop now watching the Little house, responded. “Ike hasn’t left the house. The truck’s been parked in the driveway since I got here a little before five thirty.”
“Any visitors?” I asked.
“Nobody in, nobody out.”
“But we’re not arresting him?” Pepe asked. “Even with his fingerprints on the dish?”
“Haven’t completed an arrest warrant,” Colin said.
“And we’re still trying to understand the circumstances of his prints being on that dish,” I said. “I’m hoping that he confesses to—”
“Killing a cannibal serial killer?” Luke snickered. “I’d cop to that. Get maybe a month in one of them private country-club prisons. Learn some Japanese and have them women who like jailbirds sending me tit pics and money. Sign me up.”
“But what if it all goes left?” Pepe asked.
I shook my head. “If he shows his ass, then we’ll hand it to him. With mucho gusto.”
We were cops. The LAPD. Our motto: Handing People Their Asses Since 1850.
As Colin sped us up the hill, he said, “I hope Oz doesn’t collect cats, trash, and human body parts like our buddy Gene.”
I smirked. “You’re such an optimist, talking about Oz Little as though he’s alive enough to hoard anything.”
Evening fog softened the glow of Garth Avenue’s amber streetlights, erasing edges and making the world seem soft, creamy, and safe. Lamps and television lights flickered behind closed drapes. Some sprinklers tcheted-tchetched-tchetched, making lawns sparkle silver.
Ike Underwood’s Ford truck sat in the driveway alongside Oz Little’s Jaguar.
We strode up the flagstone walkway with our guns stowed but our fingers dusting the polymer butts for good luck. On the first level, golden light glowed between the slats of the shutters. Lights also burned in an upstairs bedroom. A UPS box, along with catalogs too big for the door’s mail slot, sat on the front porch.
Pepe headed left, and Luke headed right to cover both sides of the house.
“Ike’s expecting us, right?” Colin asked.
“Yep.” I rang the doorbell.
No answer.
“And the UC said . . . ?” Colin asked.
“Mac said that no one’s left the house.” I banged on the door, then shouted, “Ike, it’s Sergeant Norton, LAPD.” I held my breath and closed my eyes, listening for footsteps, for a small dog barking, for a door creaking open or shut.
Other than the rush of blood through my veins and anxiety clicking up and down my spine like toppling dominoes, there was nothing to hear.
I twisted the doorknob.
Unlocked.
I glanced at Colin. “Uh oh.”
He frowned. “Not good.”
Gun now in hand, I pushed open the door.
The security system—a woman’s pleasant voice— announced, “Front door.”
Piles of mail sat in the stuffy foyer. Boxes of every size— from Amazon to Walmart—climbed the wall.
“LAPD,” I shouted. “Ike, it’s Sergeant Norton. Is everything okay?”
Our shoes squeaked against the dusty blond hardwood floor. The great room was littered with men’s clothing, empty Budweiser beer bottles, and two days’ worth of newspapers. It was not a hoard, just poor housekeeping. On the fireplace mantel, several framed pictures lay facedown.
I set two of those pictures upright—Oswald Little wore a black suit and a white mason’s smock. In the second, Oswald Little stood behind a white Carnival Cruise Lines life ring.
Colin tiptoed past the dining room and into the kitchen.
My eyes landed on pizza boxes, more beer bottles, used and crumpled paper towels.
No Ike.
No Oz.
A few empty grocery bags sat near the filled kitchen trashcan. I glimpsed strips of paper. Coupons for orange juice and laundry detergent. A receipt from a recent trip to the supermarket for toothpaste, Budweiser, coconut flour, brown sugar, canned peaches, coconut extract, and fresh peaches.
“Hey, Lou.” Pepe nodded to an open kitchen cabinet, then pointed to the white casserole dishes rimmed in blue cornflowers. “Just like the dish we took from Washington’s house.”
Colin cleared his throat, then said, “I’ve found . . . something.” Dread coated those three words.
“What?” I looked at him over my shoulder and my stomach clenched.
Over near the patio door, Ike Underwood sat slumped in a suede armchair. He was staring at me, except that he wasn’t really staring at me. A blood-fleshy hole the size of a kumquat, surrounded by the imprint of a gun muzzle, had penetrated his right temple. And in his right hand? A .44 Magnum revolver.
44
IKE UNDERWOOD’S SKIN WAS THE COLOR OF DESERT SAND. BUT IT WAS STILL. TOO still. There were no popping veins in his temples. No throbbing vein in the middle of his forehead. That’s because Ike Underwood had no pulse. Understandable—his brain had been scrambled by the bullet now lodged in the blood-flecked arm rest.
“Didn’t see this coming,” Colin said. “He didn’t seem like the type.”
My focus drifted from the gun to the entry and exit wounds in Ike’s temples.
“Unless,” Colin continued, “he knew he was going to jail.”
I called for Zucca and the coroner on my radio.
Pepe and Luke returned to the living room.
“We checked every nook and cranny,” Luke said. “No one else is here.”
“Isn’t Little supposed to be in Belize?” Pepe asked.
“This is his house, though,” Colin said. “Does it look like he lives here?”
Pepe and Luke blinked at us.
“In other words,” I said, “are there, like, balms or other prosthetic devices sitting around? Those sock things amputees wear to prevent chafing? Do some detecting, for Pete’s sake, Peter.”
Pepe grimaced. “Got it, Sarge.” Then, he and Luke retreated back up the stairs.
“They’re becoming lazier now that Pepe wants out,” Colin whispered to me. “Shouldn’t have to hold their hands on an investigation, you know?”
I turned back to Ike and studied the blood spatter on his blue jeans and sweatshirt and the flecks of bone and brain on the face of his wristwatch. “His watch.”
Colin stared at his watch. “It’s a Timex. So?”
“So, in the police business, this is what we call a clue.”
Colin considered the watch again, then shrugged again.
“It’s on his right arm,” I said.
Colin said, “Uh huh.”
“Which wrist is your watch on?”
He smirked, and lifted his left arm.
“And you write with your . . . ?”
“Right hand.”
I lifted my left arm. “Me, too. Shouldn’t have to hold your hand, Detective.”
Colin’s smirk faded. He whirled around to consider that watch on Ike’s right wrist, and then at that gun in Ike’s right hand.
“And look at the sleeves of his sweatshirt.” I aimed my tiny flashlight at the right sleeve, at the unspoiled cuff. “He’s holding the gun, right? Pow. Blows his brains out but . . .”
“Where’s the blood?’ Colin asked, peering closer.
“I’m not saying it’s impossible, and maybe there are microscopic drops of blood I can’t see . . .”
“Right,” Colin said, nodding.
“But the watch. It’s telling me that he’s left-handed and so the gun—”
“Should be in his left hand and not his right,” Colin completed.
I arched an eyebrow. “I could be wrong but . . .” I winced. “That would be like Harriet Tubman running that train off the track.”
There was no sign that Oswald Little still lived in the house. Upstairs, the messy bedroom testified to an active living. The bowl on the nightstand contained two ravioli with still-wet red sauce. The remote control to the darkened TV set sat atop the rumpled blue comforter, and a sports store catalog sat on one of the pillows.
Suits too small for Ike Underwood hung in the master bedroom’s closet, though. And in the adjacent bathroom, the bottles of cologne and hair tonics on the counter were covered in thick greasy dust. But the box of EpiPens prescribed last week to Eugene Washington? So new the box reflected the counter’s light.
“He took the pens and let his friend suffocate?” Colin asked.
I nodded. “After fixing him a deadly dessert. Wonder how long Ike stood there and watched him die.”
Back in the foyer, I found mail addressed to Oswald Little. Electric and water bills, a mortgage statement . . . “Not one envelope says ‘Isaac Underwood,’ ” I whispered.
As soon as I said those words, I glimpsed a piece of white notebook paper and a dirty tan envelope, torn in half, left in a wicker wastebasket. The envelope bore the green sticker for certified mail. It had been addressed to Isaac Underwood and sent by Eugene Washington.
“Damn,” I muttered.
Colin heard me curse and wandered away from the kitchen. “What’s up?”
I pointed to the envelope, then waited as Colin took pictures. Latex gloves on, I plucked the envelope and letter from the trash. “Sent August twenty-fifth,” I said. “And Ike signed for it the next day.”
Colin put the letter together and read the handwritten note. “Ike, you are an old friend. My oldest living friend. I did everything needed. I have tried to be patience with you and to understand but that is no possible. The more money is necessary. And I am not being unreasonable just $1,000 more each month. He can afford. You can afford it. If not, then I will tell the police everything and ask for emunity. Remember I was there at the very beginning. And I did what you asked. I WILL TELL IT ALL. You knew what I needed and he knew what I needed when we came back. You took advantage of my weakness and what I needed. You fed me and I ate. Sincerely, Gene Washington.”
Colin and I stared at each other, barely breathing even with open mouths.
“Ike had to kill him,” I said. “Whatever they were up to—”
“Blackmail, not because he was a people-eating psychopath. Sending a certified extortion letter—that’s a first for me.”
“Why were they paying him?” I reread the letter. “Everything you needed. What—?” Numbness prickled across all of my face. Images of those hands, that skeleton, the hoard . . . “I think . . . Eugene Washington killed people for a living. The war and then . . .”
Colin considered me, then laughed. “You mean like a hit man?”
I nodded. “And he worked for Ike and some other guy.”
Colin’s smile faltered some as the theory took shape. “He says, ‘He can afford it.’ Who is ‘he’?”
I shrugged. “Oswald Little?”
Luke and Pepe joined us in the foyer. “We don’t see nothin’ that tells us a man with no hands lives here,” Luke said.
Pepe said, “No disability mods—no gel inserts, sleeves, cleaners. There’s nothing here.”
A moment later, Colin and I left the house for the driveway.
The older couple in the Mediterranean across the street huddled on their front porch. She wore a scarf over her hair. He held a phone to his ear. In the distance, sirens wailed, en route to Garth Avenue. The whole block would soon creep out from their houses, faces twisted, eyes narrowed, and for the under-forty crowd, camera phones lifted.
Ike Underwood’s truck was unlocked—the cold cabin smelled of turpentine and spilled beer. In the glove compartment, I found the registration card in Ike’s name. A sleek black Coach wallet sat atop the truck’s yellowed owner’s manual. The name on the Social Security card and debit card said “Oswald Little.” The driver’s license showed Ike’s smiling face but the name there said, “Oswald Little,” with the Garth Avenue address. The date near the signature: February 2012. Ike Underwood had been living as Oswald Little for three years.
Stomach churning, I backed out of the cabin and showed Colin the license.
“So Oz is dead, then,” Colin said.
I nodded, then exhaled loud and long. “He disappeared in 2010 after retirement, then Ike popped up as him in 2012.”
“So where is Oz? Where is he . . . buried?”
I shrugged, then muttered, “Damn.”
“The house has a security system,” Pepe reported. “But it wasn’t set off.”
“The panel’s activity history?” I asked.
“The back door was opened at four o’clock. The front door was opened and closed at four forty-two p.m. The back door was opened and closed at five thirty-three. The front door was opened at nine forty-seven p.m.”
“That last time was us,” Colin said.
“The back door,” I said.
“Ike could’ve opened it earlier,” Pepe said. “Let in some air at four o’clock. Had enough air and closed it at five thirty.”
“Or,” I said, “someone could’ve come in at four, waited for him, killed him, left the body at half past five.”
Ninety minutes later, Zucca and his team clanked into the house with lights and metal cases. Patrol cops had finished taping off the house.
I led Zucca to Ike Underwood’s resting place in the armchair.
“Hey,” Zucca said, “I know this guy. He was in charge of the cleanup at the hoarded house. Wow. He killed himself?” He squinted. “Gun’s in the wrong hand.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “And there’s no visible blood spatter on the hand he supposedly shot himself with.”
“So I’m testing for GSR and prints,” Zucca said, nodding.
“That big ass gun? Gunshot residue should be all over his hands—but I doubt that. And looks like the bullet came out here . . .” I pointed to the exit wound in Ike’s left temple. “And lodged right there.” The bullet’s ass stuck out from the arm of the chair. “So check trajectory, too, please. And check where the shot started: flush at his temple, or elevated, like someone was standing over him?”
MacKenzie found me staring at shoe prints near the staircase. “No one came through the front door, Lou.” The bearded undercover cop sounded panicked, and his pulse thrummed in his temples.
“You’re positive?” I asked.
He waggled the small video camera in his hand. “I was even tapin’, just to be extra cautious. Cuz I know how you get.”
“Mind if I look later?”
“Sure—I’ll upload it to the server. But no one came. No one left.”
But someone had come to pay Ike Underwood a visit.
“How did he or she get in, then?” Colin asked.
“I think . . .” I crept over to the patio door and turned the edge of the brass handle. Unlocked. The door opened, and the security system announced, “Back door.”
“He came through there,” Colin said.
“Zucca,” I shouted over my shoulder, “be sure to dust both inside and outside handles.”
“Lou, don’t move,” Colin warned.
I froze. “What?”
He pointed to the hardwood floor. “Shoe print.”
A lightly muddy tread had been left on the ground.
“Zucca,” I shouted again, “we got something down here, too.”
Out in the backyard, the cool, thick air kissed my face. People in the city below, blurry now behind the fog, would soon be asleep. Lights glowed for the club hoppers and first dates, late diners and all-night gamers. Back at Oswald Little’s house, the pool hadn’t been cleaned in months. Leaves and trash floated atop the slimy-green, murky water. The grass, though, had been cut, and water from the sprinklers beaded on the blades of grass. A low wrought-iron fence lined the property—at just two feet tall, it was more show than security. Beyond that fence, the hill dropped to the backyards of houses on the downslope.
Mini-Maglite out, I aimed the beam of light at the ground: two sets of shoe-print impressions made in the grass and mud led to and away from the Little house. “He came this way,” I said to Colin.
We followed a barely-there trench down the hill. The muddy prints picked up again, leading us to a two-story Cape Cod with a well-kept, mosaic-tiled pool and outdoor teak furniture. The security light popped on, and the glare seared my eyes. I blinked away as spots swirled before me. Colin, too, squinted, and once we recovered our vision, we crept on the house’s side to the front porch. A Honda Accord and a Toyota Highlander were parked in the driveway. The muddy footsteps ended at the front door.
“Ready?” Colin asked.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Yep.”
He rang the doorbell.
I held my breath as my heartbeat raced in my chest.
The door opened.
“Detectives!” Sonia Elliott said, breathless. “How can I help you?”
45
“IT’S LATE. ALMOST MIDNIGHT.”
Sonia Elliott didn’t want to invite Colin and me into her house. She stood there on the threshold, eyes glazed and hands clutching the neck of her flamingo-pink silk pajama top. Finally, she blinked and good manners found her once again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please . . .”
She opened the door wider and stepped aside. Led us through the small foyer and into the living room. Jabbered about the long day, the noise up the hill, and the surprise of finding us standing on her porch.
The living room’s Thomas Kinkade painting of the cottage by the creek clashed with the black-and-white photograph of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, the one with her eyes turned to heaven and her mouth open in mid-hallelujah. The air smelled of cologne. Mossy. Warm. Like a countryside after rain. A crystal glass on the coffee table held amber-colored liquid. Was Sonia a whiskey drinker?
“To be honest,” I said, “we’re surprised to be here, too.”
“Thanks for being so . . .” Colin paused to find a word. “Accommodating.”
The church secretary blinked her heavily mascaraed eyes, then touched her rouged cheek. “What do you need?” She touched her eyebrow, and then her fingers disappeared into her short silver hair.
“Someone climbed over your gate today,” I said, “and hiked up the hill, then came back here. Do you know who that could’ve been?”
