Blood and Sand Page 10

I’m not good with kids. Ironic, I know. You can be not-good with kids and still know how to soothe them. Harry Potter, for instance, always works. I’m usually using it on a plane or in a car while we’re headed back to their family. I’m almost never using it, in a circumstance such as this, before I’ve upset the living daylights out of them by asking about an experience they’re enormously invested in forgetting. But Lani’s right on that line. I’ve seen it before: lifelong mental illness, possibly full catatonia, is as close as one more trauma. And it doesn’t have to be much. It could be a door slamming. It could be some unimaginable asshole yelling, “Boo!”

  It could very easily be reliving the thing that I’m desperate to know about.

  I go there in my mind. Thirty hours ago, before a whole other life began for this kid. Lani’s in the back of the van, playing with her dolls. Doris is up front, secure in the knowledge that she won’t have to get her hands dirty because the bodies are going with Jones.

  Then Jones comes hobbling out. Doris watches Jones drive off. The van’s back door opens, and Gus throws a five-foot, one-hundred-eighty-pound grandma into the back with Lani. Maybe onto Lani, who knows?

  Lani knows. And only she and Gus know what happened next, since Doris picked this moment to embrace her inner coward and run.

  I could take another shot at questioning Gus. I’m thinking about it, pulling a stress ball from a jacket pocket and giving it the squeeze of its life. Assuming I could get around the watchdogs they’ve posted to ensure I don’t blind their new state’s witness in the making, the other problem is, Gus is that precise brand of moron that’s got a survivalist skill set built in. He knows by now that RICO is interested. He’ll be watching to see what’ll net him the best deal, and the answer, I know, is RICO. They’ll do anything to take down a few lieutenants for racketeering or corruption, up to and including some really corrupt shit. Like not pushing too hard about where a missing girl is.

  The most likely scenario is the one I’ve favored since yesterday: Gus dumped both Hattie and Polly at Zuma, and Polly was carried out to sea. She was definitely shot. I didn’t ask Atwater whether he just did type or PCR with it, because I know that answer, too. Grouchy techs are thorough. The blood on the van’s ceiling is Polly’s.

  I’m trying to picture it: this kid in my lap, she’s in the van playing with dolls. Gus has all the muscle tone of a beanbag chair, so carrying Hattie must have been a chore. He lets gravity take over and plops the body in there. If Lani’s in the way, the body pins her. Doris didn’t speak to this; she said Lani froze.

  Okay, Lani’s frozen. Doris runs. And Gus? Gus has to go back to get Polly, leaving Lani alone in the van with a dead body.

  Maybe she stays frozen. Fine, Gus comes back and throws Polly in. Polly’s lighter. Polly’s so much lighter that she bounces and some blood flies to the ceiling.

  Did Polly collide with Lani, bonk her in the head, knock her out? Because it doesn’t quite work for me, this kid who about ran me over coming out of that kennel sitting frozen in a van with a dead woman.

  But forget that for now, because Gus drives to Zuma, he gets the van right to the waterline, and he pulls both bodies out. And Lani, what? Watches all this passively? Is she tied up? Is she unconscious?

  I sneak a finger under the sleeve of her robe. Her wrists have no ligature marks. I’ve been combing her hair for the past two hours, and I haven’t found a bump of any kind. So either she’s got supernatural healing powers, or I’m missing something important.

  I look down at her. Gus wasn’t wrong; the resemblance is uncanny. I think of medieval royalty, how they’d use lookalikes for the lesser festivals sometimes, to frustrate would-be assassins or to give the hard-working nobles a break. I let my mind board this weird train of thought and feel it leading toward sleep, but I don’t let it get there. I hover above it, watching it, acknowledging the temptation but politely declining. It’s a trick I learned from a yogi a few years ago when a case took me to India and I detoured to Tibet once I was finished: you slow your breathing, take your pulse and brain waves down to a level that mimics sleep, but your eyes stay open. You’re still blinking, and you’re still thinking. In fact, you’re able to sort of hybridize conscious and unconscious thought. Occasionally while doing this, I’ll wind up making connections that I’ve missed. I don’t use it a lot — I don’t like to sit still for too long when I’m on the trail of a kid who’s probably still alive — but in this circumstance, it seems appropriate.

  Doris. Lani. Van.

  Gus. Body. Lani.

  A pleasant British voice says the word “fainted.”

  I gasp. The room is the same. On the screen, Harry’s learning the rules of quiddich. And I’m saying, “You fainted” to Lani, who doesn’t react other than to shift so that there’s more of my leg cushioning her head.

  Gus threw Hattie in the van. Lani froze. Doris ran. Lani fainted. Gus threw Polly in the van, drove everybody to Zuma, tossed out the bodies and then drove to the desert, where he stuck Lani in the dog cage.

  No tying-up required. No injuries inflicted.

  So why do I hate it?

  I check the time. It’s almost five. I’m still missing something, and of the two people who could give it to me, one’s a grade schooler who’s dangerously close to a psychotic break and the other one’s under federal lock and key.

  I sneak sideways, setting Lani’s head on the cushioned floor.

  “I’ll leave this here, okay?” I point to the screen.

  Lani snuggles into the soft wall.

  I cross to the door. Sylvia’s waiting outside, and I give her the charger. “That battery’s a monster. It shouldn’t need juice for at least six hours.”

  “Got it.”

  “Are you sure you can stay here? Your bosses aren’t going to shit a brick or anything?”

  “They can shit whatever they want.”

  I smile. Sylvia does, too — and not the FBI version. I turn to go.

  “Watch your back,” she says. “This is one hell of a rock you’ve crawled under.”

  I throw her a wave as I round the corner. “Home sweet home.”

  Chapter 16

  I do something I haven’t done in years: ride the defunct subway tunnels to avoid rush hour traffic. It’s peaceful, in a dark, dank, moldy, rat-infested way. It’s also easy — most of the motorcycle traffic would migrate down here in a heartbeat if the fines weren’t astronomical for getting caught. And if the homeless weren’t huddled in corners like tumbleweeds, my headlight flashing off their bottles and pipes. And if the rats weren’t the size of cats, the cats the size of dogs.

  Okay, so I find comfort in dark places. That shouldn’t be shocking. I wonder if Lani will wind up a fan of the world’s wide underbelly, skulking through it and seeing an expression of truth rather than sadness. I wonder how many of the kids I deliver from evil will become enamored of it, fascinated by it, even eaten alive by it in the end.

  But the end is none of my business. I bring them home. That’s all I do.

  I pop out at the proper aqueduct and cruise into the police precinct, not sure how I’m going to play this. So I do the characteristic thing and just stroll in, hearing silence strike the cops who are chatting through shift change. I head for my de facto office.

  When I get there, everything’s been cleared out. I grin inside, so that when Tuttle appears in the doorway a second later, I can look properly pissed. “You wanna tell me who the hell spring cleaned in here?”

  “I’ll give you three guesses,” he says, obviously drained. I wonder if he had to arrest more than one naked hophead on the pier today. “And the first two don’t count.”

  “Laughlin. Is he here?”

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “With who?”

  “The mayor, the police commissioner, the captain, about six other guys in good suits. They’ve been in there a while.”

  I sit heavily on the conference table.

  Tuttle sits next to me, at the perfect
distance to convey that he’d like to sit a lot closer. “Why’d you call the FBI first at that storage place in the desert? Why not us?”

  “Habit, I guess.”

  He smirks. “Laughlin’s losing his mind. He’s been scouring everywhere for a lead you might have missed.”

  “I’m not trying to humiliate anybody here.”

  “Yeah, I know that. It’s just a lot of fun to watch you do it by accident.”

  I look over at him. “You seem tired.”

  “I am. I bought you breakfast this morning, remember?”

  “Barely.”

  “Can I buy you dinner?”

  “People might start getting ideas.”

  “Not here. This place is idea-free, believe me.”

  He chooses a deli across the street, and I’m glad. We eat on barstools, me making sweet, sweet love to a Reuben with extra thousand island. “This is incredible.”

  “Best in the city,” Tuttle says. “Stay away from the coffee, though. The owner’s from Jersey. He knows his corned beef, but he brews straight battery acid. I swear to God I lost a piece of my esophagus here.”

  “Good tip.”

  “So what’d you come back for? Besides me?”

  I’m trying to allow his flirtation without returning it. It’s delicate work. I wouldn’t bother, but I see no point in being cruel. I put the question more politely than I normally would and hope Tuttle doesn’t take it as encouragement. “Laughlin petitioned DOT for the surveillance footage from the morning Hattie’s body was found. I wondered if it came through yet.”

  “Oh, it came through,” Tuttle says, setting his sandwich down. “Laughlin’s going to have my ass mounted on the precinct wall for telling you this.”

  “That’s an amazing mental picture. Telling me what?”

  “Some of the footage is missing.” He nods at my shock. “DOT swears it wasn’t on their end. They checked the cameras, they checked the hub — all ship-shape, no sign of tampering. But the tape skips from 12:54 to 1:13.”

  “Right when Gus would’ve been making his special delivery,” I say.

  “That’s when Laughlin called everybody in.”

  “He thinks a cop messed with it?”

  Tuttle picks up a pickle spear and takes an angry bite. “Can you think of another explanation?”

  “The good suits were internal affairs guys.”

  “Yep. So I’ll be getting a verbal proctological exam pretty soon, along with everybody else.”

  I point some rye at the window. “Maybe sooner than that.”

  Laughlin’s jay-walking, putting his hand out to stop vehicles whose drivers so desperately want to lay on the horn but don’t because his badge is twinkling with the start of dusk. And because he’s still on crutches.

  “What’s his deal?” I say.

  Tuttle’s packing up leftovers. “He’s got something to prove.”

  The deli’s bell rings as Laughlin crutches in. Tuttle tips me a wink and goes around his boss, saving Laughlin the task of dismissing him. Laughlin takes the empty seat like it was always his. “I think we got off on the wrong foot,” he says.

  I look at his broken leg pointedly and say nothing.

  “Some guys filled me in today. About you. I’ve gotta tell you, I’m impressed.”

  “I told you about me the first time we met. But I guess you prefer it when guys fill you in.”

  His mouth goes briefly feral, but he transforms it to a smile. “Beth — can I call you Beth?”

  “No.”

  “Fell, I realize you’ve been working with the Bureau on this, keeping your cards close to the vest so to speak, but I’d appreciate an update on any progress you’ve made. As a professional courtesy.”

  I think about the professional courtesy he’s extended to me and feel decidedly unmoved. I show him so with my leisurely chewing.

  His smile gets tighter. “I had your conference room cleared out because I wasn’t sure you were coming back. But we’ve got a lot of new material.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the autopsy report. Like witness statements from the storage compound.”

  I shove my last bite in and wrap up the stray lettuce. “What about the traffic cams from Zuma? Did the DOT send the footage?”

  “Not yet,” he says.

  I don’t react, except to think very loudly at him: This is why I’m with the feds this time, you lying prick. “Keep me posted on that.”

  “I’d be happy to. Can I spring for dessert? There’s an ice cream place around the —”

  “Nah, I gotta go.”

  I use the crosswalk like a civilized person and get on my bike. While putting my helmet on, I check my surroundings surreptitiously. There’s an unmarked car in the police motor pool, idling. When I pull out of the lot, it does likewise. I pick a low traffic route, execute a few gentle turns, and observe them doing the same. I roll my eyes, get on some gridlock, and keep my foot to the gas, threading the needle through stopped lanes. If Laughlin were smart, he’d have had motorcycle cops tail me. Then again, they’d be so conspicuous I’d have made them even faster.

  I roll into an alley and make a call.

  “Yeah,” Nico says after one ring.

  I hear guitar reverb in the background. “Rehearsing?”

  “Performing. It’s fine, they can do an acoustic. What do you need?”

  “How hard is it to hack the DOT?”

  “I can do it.”

  “I know you can, but how hard is it?”

  “Depends on the city.”

  “LA,” I say.

  “On a scale of one to ten, LA’s an eight.”

  I’m debating.

  But Nico’s been my guy for a while. “Don’t worry about me,” he says. “I’ll cover my tracks. Tell me what you need. I’ll get it done.”

  “Do more than cover them. Obliterate them. No tracks, none.”

  “I understand. What am I doing?”

  “There’s about twenty minutes missing from a bunch of traffic cams near south Zuma Beach on Tuesday morning. I want to know where that time went, who erased it, how, anything you can find. But,” I add hastily, “you attempt this with the mindset that you are going up against a hacker who’s as good at this as you are. He might have — I don’t know, left some way to trace back to anybody who’s looking into it, or — you know what I mean.”

  “Do I hit you back with this or wait for a call?”

  “I’ll call. And Nico? How careful are you going to be?”

  “Very.”

  “Good man.” I hang up and drive.

  UCLA Medical Center is its usual crush of insanity until I get to the basement. Lacy’s office door is open, and she’s stooped over the keyboard when I knock.

  “What happened to your hand?” she says instantly.

  “It’s nothing. Do you have a minute?”

  She wheels back from her computer, marches to me, and starts unwinding the bandage.

  It’s hopeless, but I still try. “Honestly, it’s no big deal.”

  “Oh my God. What did you put on this?”

  “It’s kind of a glue. It’s fine. Can you walk me through the autopsy report? I’ve hit a snag with the locals and their information-sharing.”

  She beckons me down the hall with a finger, her busy steps headed for the morgue. Inside the autopsy bay, she points at the central table. “Sit right there. This is going to take at least a half-hour, and I don’t want you trying to rush me. I have to scrape that gunk off and then irrigate, debride and suture it.”

  “You shouldn’t need to debride. I did it with my own knife.”

  “Which I’m sure you sanitize every time you use it.”

  I try a hail-Mary. “The adhesive is antibacterial?”

  She hunches over the tray she’s preparing and glares up at me.

  “Okay. I give. Uncle.”

  She starts with tweezers, peeling the adhesive off in strips. “This is disgusting.”

  “You’re a c
oroner, Lacy.”

  “Yes, I am, and most of my patients don’t try to self-treat. I’m the first one to the party. Whereas here, the microbes have been raving it up for — how long have you let this sit?”

  “Fifteen hours or so.”

  “Disgusting,” she says again.

  “Could we focus? What’s the dirt on Hattie? Any surprises?”

  “Well, surprise, she died of gunshot wounds.”

  “Knock me down with a feather.”

  Lacy picks up an ampoule of lidocaine and a syringe.

  “No, don’t numb it. I need the hand.”

  “Do you understand how much this is going to hurt if it’s not anesthetized?”

  “I poured some cheap vodka on it at a truck stop, so yeah, I got a preview.”

  She puts the drugs away. “You are insane.”

  “Agreed, but let’s stay on topic. Hattie?”

  “No post-mortem predation. If you throw a body in the ocean, the fish will nibble at it, even if it’s only in there a few hours. I think she was left on the beach. How’s that feel?”

  Like a flamethrower. “Anything else?”

  “Plenty of trace. I got fibers from her hair that looked like carpet. There were threads under her fingernails; she probably grabbed at the guy’s ankles while she was bleeding out.”

  I squirm. Lacy’s debriding, and it feels like a miner with a pickaxe digging for a diamond in my hand.

  “Other than that, nothing unexpected. I’ll give you the report to look over.”

  “Give me the full one, not the one you dumb down for the cops.” Then I ask, because she’s reaching for the suture kit and I need the distraction, “How’s that other case coming?”

  “The serial killer? Killing prostitutes? It’s terrific, thanks for asking. There’s nothing about it that’s not fun.”

  She’s in a mood. To be fair, I’ve never received a particularly warm welcome when I’ve come in here with injuries I’ve tried to band-aid using medieval medical care. But I haven’t exactly had a picnic the past couple of days either, so I respond with, “That’s good to hear. It’s always nice when work is a paycheck as well as a swell time. Do you have to stab quite that deep to get the stitches in, Lacy? It feels like my hand is giving birth backwards.”