Blood and Sand Page 3

  “Hey, s’cuse me?”

  His tone is laced with fear. I turn around.

  His eyes flick between me and the ocean. “Why would somebody do that?”

  “Money,” I say.

  He’s got more questions, but they’re stuck in his throat. I walk away. He’d be better off with a therapist. They’re better liars.

  I go back to the site, seeing it differently this time. This isn’t where she washed up. This is where she was dumped. Hattie was killed around midnight. Her downstairs neighbor heard the struggle but no shots, meaning the guy used a silencer. This neighbor had the charming urban tendency to assume that whatever was going on wasn’t his problem. He said he figured Hattie fell down on the way to the can and, since the granddaughter was there, she’d call 911 if Hattie broke a hip or something.

  It wasn’t a broken hip. It was a punctured trachea, hemorrhaged liver, perforated intestine, etc., etc., and Hattie wasn’t wheeled out of that building by paramedics, she was carried and/or dragged out by the killer.

  And brought here. God, why? I tromp away from the water, the sand dragging down my boots. I’m looking in all directions, rolling my eyes, because this is one of the stupidest dump sites I’ve ever seen. There’s a parking lot fifty yards away and I go there, checking around for blood but feeling no surprise when I don’t find any. “You drove across the sand,” I say out loud, back-tracking. “You stopped here, went around, unloaded her, and threw her in the water. You assumed she’d get carried out with the tide.”

  I laugh. I don’t mean to. I put a hand over my mouth before things get out of control, because — “Holy shit, you’re an idiot.”

  In a way, this is good news. It’s nice going up against an idiot. I always win.

  I turn north, pausing to pick up the little girl in the Swimmie. I’m marching hurriedly as she giggles, whacking me in the face with her shovel. I bend down, plop the kid on her mother’s tan stomach, hear an adult tantrum commence with, “Hey! What’s —” and promptly stop listening.

  Continuing toward my motorcycle, an unpleasant tingling starts in the corner of my brain. The police reports all seem to assume that the body washed in with the tide. Why assume that? It points to a much higher level of sophistication, combined with a bit of bad luck. Disposing of a body in the ocean is always a roll of the dice, whether or not you weigh it down. Tides are unpredictable, there’s plenty of crap floating around down there that can slice through bindings, and fish love human flesh. If you guess wrong about any of those or a thousand other factors, then sooner or later we’ve got a funky little present washing ashore. If you guess right, then any defense attorney worth five bucks an hour knows that no body equals no murder in the minds of many jurors.

  Whoever dumped Hattie here wasn’t smart enough to run any of those odds — and/or they weren’t prepared enough to have a boat ready. Picking that spot is an action born of panic, not planning. Assuming the opposite is wasting us valuable time. I wonder how many detectives and uniforms are currently canvassing the marinas, checking for boats that might have gone for a midnight ride.

  I take out my cell and pull up the lifeguard’s statement. Laughlin’s name is on the signature line.

  Then there’s the matter of Gus Speer’s file being MIA from my materials.

  I don’t like this.

  I check the time, picking a route that has me threading through rush hour and getting honked at by envious commuters who don’t have the balls for a bike. It’s meditative, in a way, because with my whole mind focused on not getting creamed by some asshole texting his dog groomer and deciding that now is the time for a lane change, the details of the dump site organize themselves more neatly in my brain.

  An hour more and it could have worked — Hattie might have been carried out to sea. That’s interesting, because cops are quick when it comes to securing bodies washed up on shore, but the Pacific is quicker. By the time the police arrived, Hattie’s hair would have been drenched, and the erroneous idea that she’d been brought in with the tide is a tad more understandable.

  Which should take some of my suspicions away. Oddly, it doesn’t.

  Polly was lighter, a lot lighter. The plan might have worked in her case. She could be on her way to Ecuador right now, floating lifelessly past sunken pirate ships and big blue whales, her eyes wide and fixed, her hair stringy seaweed. A mermaid in still-life.

  Chapter 5

  Lacy’s the bonesaw in charge at UCLA Medical, and we go way back. She even called me when her niece ran away from home a few years ago. Easiest case of my career. I found her and her boyfriend camping out under a pier. They offered me a hit of their spliff and giggled ’til they fell over. I called Lacy instead of the police, and I’ve had carte blanche access to this hospital ever since.

  She meets me at the elevator downstairs. “This is a restricted area,” she says, pretending to be serious.

  I pretend to be horrified. “Oh no, I’m so sorry. I thought this was where they kept the dining room furniture.”

  She gestures me in. “Well, there are plenty of tables.”

  “How’s the niece?”

  “Pregnant.” Her tone warns me off the topic. “How’s the hunt going?”

  “Still getting a feel for it. This one’s messy.”

  “I won’t ask.”

  “You’re the smart kid in class, Lacy.”

  I like morgues. Weird of me, I know. I think it’s the strict organization of everything — tags on toes, bodies in bags, bags in drawers, all of it inventoried and catalogued, weighed and measured.

  “How’d she look to you?” I say, as Lacy pulls a drawer open.

  “See for yourself.”

  I whistle. Can’t help it. Hattie’s expression is pure fury. Her wounds are torn wide from struggling. Her hands are clenched in fists. I take out my phone, asking with a glance.

  Lacy says, “I think I should go put us on the visitor’s log. Hang on while I turn my back and do that.”

  “Take your time.” I’m thorough. I’ll have access to the autopsy report, but my odd morning is nagging at me, telling me I might want my own documentation. When I get to Hattie’s eyes, I blink mine. “Were her eyebrows still drawn on when she came in?”

  “Her eyebrows? She doesn’t have any.”

  “I know. She lost them in chemo. She drew them on in pencil. Thin little lines, Cruella de Ville style. Did she have those when she came in? Because they’re gone now.”

  Lacy comes over. “No. She didn’t.”

  “How long before you’ll have the report?”

  “I’ve got somebody ahead of her, but —”

  “This isn’t priority?”

  “Have you heard about the guy killing prostitutes on the Boulevard?” She points at the drawer to the left of Hattie.

  I lean on the wall, setting my head on the cool metal, looking Hattie over and counting bullet holes. She really went for it. How much of her fighting spirit was the eighty-million dollars that she was days away from receiving? How much of it was the nine-year-old sleeping a few feet behind her, dreaming of boy band concerts and the coming summer?

  “What’s the timeframe?” I say.

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  We’ve done the social calls, Lacy and I — gotten drinks, compared notes over sushi when a trial’s coming up. I know she windsurfs; she knows I don’t. I know she resents the hell out of her sister for raising another lost cause, and she knows, after asking me exactly once, that “Why do you do what you do?” is not a question to ever, ever ask me.

  I also know she hates professional pissing contests almost as much as I do. “What do you think of the lead guy on this?”

  “Laughlin? I’m pretty sure he looks in the mirror while he jacks off, if that’s any help.”

  I smile. Smiles help. “What else?”

  “He came down here right after they treated his leg. He wanted to inform me that he wasn’t giving up this case under any circumstances, and he wanted a heads-up
about anybody who came around asking questions, FBI or otherwise.” She puts an aw-shucks finger to her lips. “I think I forgot to tell him you stopped by.”

  “Tell him,” I say.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. He tried to break out the tape measure when we were back at the precinct. I kept my dick in my pants, so I think he’s already got his eye on me. No reason to get him gunning for you, too.”

  “You’ve got your standard Get Out of Jail Free card, don’t you?”

  I admitted to this one night after too much plum wine. It’s a clause in my contract — any legal infractions I commit while on assignment, the client has to cover my lawyer fees and any resulting fines. This includes everything from speeding tickets to non-felonious assault.

  Still. “I haven’t given him a solid reason to tangle with me yet. The longer I can avoid that, the better my access. And the faster I find her.”

  We both look at the body. Lacy echoes what I was thinking a second ago. “She really gave it everything, didn’t she? To save Polly?”

  “Or to make it past Go and collect eighty-million.” I head for the door. “Call if you finish ahead of schedule. Otherwise I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The sun is starting its slide sideways. I kickstart the engine, precinct-bound again. The jammed streets aren’t unlike the thoroughfares of my brain, clogged with too many thoughts. I resist doing the dangerous thing and picking my favorite hypothetical, then tipping the domino at the front to see how they fall. It’s too easy to get tunnel vision that way. I watched agents do it all the time at the Bureau — fall in love with a story and stick to it, even when fresh evidence is pointing with a neon sign at another explanation.

  I want Gus Speer. I want him in an interrogation room, with ugly industrial lights x-raying his lies transparent for me. I want it now.

  But you don’t say that to the police.

  What I do is, I park my motorcycle, take off my helmet, and ignore the reporter with the hair so bleached it looks like it’s one good scare away from going white forever trying to catch up to me, cameraman in tow, cackling, “Are you the consultant? Are you the consultant hired to help locate Polly Turner?” And then, because I’m not a saint, when she sticks the mic in my face I grab the spongy ball at the top and twist, popping it off in my hand so I can throw it in the gutter and watch her run after it like a dumb little dog. Her cameraman, wisely, backs away as she shrieks, “These are expensive, you bitch!”

  Inside the precinct, I do a quick visual census for who’s still around. Tuttle’s at a desk near the back wall, pecking at his keyboard. He sees me, smiles and waves like we’re friends from childhood. Or, at the very least, like I didn’t cause him to spill a liter of cold soda down his front a few hours ago.

  I hear Laughlin before I see him. He’s in one of the offices, yelling at a guy who’s heard it before, will hear it again, and therefore is barely hearing it now — the captain, I’m guessing. He’s got those chronic stress basset hound eyes.

  I go to the coffeemaker. Tuttle appears as I’m pouring. “Don’t drink that,” he says.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s cheap. It’s stale. And I didn’t make it, so it’s —”

  “Goddamn,” I say, and cough. I’m faking it; I’ve tasted coffee that’s a whole other dimension of bad, coffee that you’d swear was burning a brand-new hole in your throat instead of sliding down it. But — “Sure. Yeah. You make it.”

  He takes the cup from me, dumping it in the sink. He unclips some keys from his belt and reaches past me, to a cabinet. I move so he can unlock it. In the cabinet are about three-dozen spotless, stylish mugs, along with several bags of high-end whole beans, a grinder, a scale, and a gigantic glass pour-over pitcher.

  My eyebrows climb. I’m not faking my surprise. “You really are the coffee master.”

  Tuttle chuckles, spooning beans into the grinder. His hands are thick but dextrous. I notice his whole body is like that — dense and compact without any chub, graceful in its movements. If I had a rubber band around my wrist, I’d snap it again. “When somebody just needs the jolt,” he says, “then the station sludge is fine. But I like to make everybody a perfect cup in the a.m., give a good start to the day.” He peeks at the clock near the entrance. “Most of us are easing off the caffeine by now.”

  “Not me.” I give him a little grin and nod at the office, where Laughlin’s still trying to storm around, despite his crutches. “What’s going on in there?”

  “Cap assigned a different lead detective. Laughlin’s not happy about it.”

  “Laughlin seems pretty intense,” I say.

  Tuttle hands me a mug that smells like coffee nirvana. “That’s the nice way of putting it.”

  I sip and make a minor orgasm sound at the taste. I’m not sure how much I’m faking or not faking that one. The coffee’s hot and bitter and chocolatey with hints of berry. It is the stuff of climaxes. I waggle a finger at Tuttle in a fairly professional ‘c’mere’ gesture and lead him up the hall. My conference room is the same hot mess as when I left it, though I get the sense a few things have been moved around. I save that observation for later and wake up the laptop, get Gus’s mugshot on the big screen. “Where are we on this turdburger?”

  Tuttle crosses his arms and puts his back to the wall. “Well, grain of salt on anything I say. I did canvas when we first sealed off the apartment building, but I’m a humble uni. I spent this afternoon chasing down a hophead who was rollerblading naked on the boardwalk.”

  “Sounds like a Tuesday in Los Angeles.”

  He nods. “That turdburger flushed himself. Went someplace dark and smelly, and he’s not coming up for air until this thing dies down. You read his sheet?”

  “Yeah. Quite the criminal omnivore.”

  “Problem with a guy like that is, he’s stupid enough to try anything, but when he screws up, he’s been screwing up long enough that he’s got friends in hidey-holes all over the city.” Tuttle goes to the conference table and picks out a photo of Hattie’s kitchen. “You want my theory, he’s getting some back-alley surgery somewhere. See this?” Yellow plastic triangles are set in a sea of blood, tiny sailboats in a big read ocean. “Three blood types. One of the blood techs is a guy I went to high school with, and he says it was like trying to type a slaughterhouse in there. But there were definitely three.”

  I was aware of this, of course. I see where he’s going, but I give him my best confused face.

  “Hattie got his gun somehow,” Tuttle says. “Clipped Gus someplace not too important and he lost his cool, spraying the apartment bullets. Polly takes a slug, Gus dumps them both in the drink, but only Hattie washes up, along with any plan he had to collect the eighty-million.”

  “Possible,” I say.

  “You got a better theory?”

  I like his scenario. It’s very neat and clean, very direct. If I hadn’t done my legwork today, I might be liking it even more. But as it is, I’m filling the silence by killing off my coffee, letting Tuttle wait while I try and decide what else I can get out of him. “How long have you been a cop?”

  “Eleven years. Why?”

  “Never put in for detective?”

  He smiles. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because if you put in for it, you’d get it.”

  “I would, huh?”

  I let that sit. He can answer or not answer; I’m not even sure why I’m asking.

  He puts the photo back and slips his hands in his pockets. “I get what you mean. I’m a nice guy. It’s the first thing people say when they’re talking about me — oh yeah, Jimmy Tuttle, nice guy. I was never somebody who hates that, people saying that. I never needed to be the badass. There’s a hophead rollerblading naked by the pier? Most any cop would tase him, run him in, let the system do what it’s gonna do. I talked to him. I told him listen, there’s kids around, why don’t we get you some clothes. I did the arrest, I did the charge, but I let him get dressed first. Detectives don’t
do that. They don’t have the time, they’ve gotta close.” He shrugs. “They forget these people are people. Even that creep, even Gus Speer, he’s a person. A person who did a shitty thing, but a person.” He pivots so we’re facing each other. “What about you?”

  “I’m not nice.”

  “No?” he says, claiming my coffee mug. “Can I make you another one?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” I look toward the door to give Tuttle a heads-up. Laughlin is crutching his way in.

  “Hey, bud,” Tuttle says. “How’s that feeling?”

  “Beat it,” Laughlin says.

  Tuttle tips the empty mug at me. “Anytime you need the good stuff.”

  “I’ll remember,” I say.

  Laughlin watches Tuttle walk out and swings the door so it almost hits his heel when it slams. Then he stands tall on his one good leg and says, “Let’s get something straight. I don’t think you need to be here and I don’t like it. I think the fact that you’re making seven figures to go treasure hunting for a dead girl on behalf of the lottery is disgusting, and I hope to hell you trip over this asshole when he’s armed and tweaking and he blows a whole other smile in your face besides the one you’re aiming at me right now.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, it’s not. Anything you find, you hand it over to me. I’m still on this, and we have jurisdiction. If I hear that you and the feds are keeping information back, I’ll get you charged with obstruction.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, one more thing. How about dressing for the job? How about not parading around like that and distracting my guys?”

  “What about you, Detective? That cotton poly blend in diarrhea brown. Hubba hubba.”

  Laughlin’s got an actor-head: unusually large, extremely expressive. Right now, it’s turning bright pink as he’s sifting through which responses to my last comment won’t get him fired for inappropriate conduct.

  I take advantage of the pause and unzip a pocket in my jacket, extracting what looks like a deck of cards. I fan them out between my hands: kids, most of them school photos. “I take the for-profit jobs so I can cover the pro-bono ones myself. My track record’s pretty damn good. The ones I find dead I keep in another pocket. It’s a much shorter stack.” I put them away. “That shore isn’t where Hattie washed up, it’s where she was tossed. The tide doesn’t get high enough at that part of Zuma. Not by six a.m., not in April. The guy who did this drove out onto the sand and dumped her, and he knew those tides about as well as you do, because he thought they’d pull her into the current. You could check the parking lot for tire tracks, but I’m betting there are too many to tease apart. Also, it would only prove I’m right, and I think we both already know that.”