Prologue
The Empty House
Temecula, California
Late during one of those perfect twilights when the sky
shimmered with copper like the last pulse of heat burning
out of a body, Padilla and Bigelow turned off the highway
onto a narrow residential street that brought them directly
into the sun. They reached for their sun visors at the same
time, both of them squinting, as Padilla thought, Christ, it
was like driving head-on into hell.
Bigelow sat forward when he saw the women in the street.
"On the left. I’ll call it in."
Bigelow had three months in the car, compared to
Padilla’s nine years and change, so he was still excited by
that stuff, the radio, the days when Padilla let him drive,
and responding to a possible capitol crime.
“Call, but try not to sound so excited. You sound like
you got a chub over this. Let me tell you something, you get
these calls, they’re bullshit, they want attention, they’re
just confused, they’re drunk, whatever, so try to sound like
you know what’s what.”
“Okay.”
“Sound bored, like you finally figured out being a cop
is bullshit.”
“You think I’m going to embarrass you?”
“It crossed my mind.”
The women and children stood in the street between rows
of cramped stucco houses, everyone in shorts and sandals,
maybe seven or eight of them altogether. Ford pickups and an
occasional boat were parked in their driveways. The
neighborhood was similar to Padilla’s, only Padilla was
closer to town where the valley was green, not out here
where the hills flattened into something like desert. Out
here, landscaping was lava rock, blue gravel, and dead grass.
Padilla pulled over and got out as Bigelow made the
call. He hated getting out of the car. Even at twilight, it
was a hundred and five.
"Okay, what do we have? Who called?"
A heavyset woman with thin legs and wide feet stepped
past two teenaged girls.
"That would be me, Katherine Torres. She's on the
floor. I think it's her, but I couldn't tell."
They had been dispatched to a 911, the Torres woman
screaming her neighbor was dead with blood everywhere.
Dispatch put out the call and now here they were, Padilla
and Bigelow, uniformed patrol officers with the Temecula
Police Department. Katherine Torres’ hand waved as if a
nervous life possessed it.
"All I saw were feet, but I think it's Maria. I called
through the screen ‘cause I knew they were home, so I looked
in. The feet are all wet--and the legs--and I don't know it
looks like blood."
Bigelow joined them as Padilla eyed the house. The sun
was almost behind the mountains and most of the houses were
showing lights. The house in question was dark. Katherine
Torres could have seen anything--a towel someone dropped on
the way from the shower, a spilled Dr Pepper, or feet wet
with blood.
Padilla said, “They got a dog?"
"No, no dog."
"How many people live here?"
One of the teenaged girls said, "Four, the parents and
two children. They're really nice. I sit for the little girl.”
Bigelow, so anxious to get to the house that he shifted
from foot to foot like a kid having to pee, said, "Anyone
hear any shouting, fighting, anything like that?"
No one had heard anything like that or anything else.
Padilla told the women to wait in the street, then he
and Bigelow approached the house. The ground crunched under
their boots. Large black ants crossed the earth in an
irregular line, come out in the deepening twilight. The
copper sky had purpled in the west as the darkness chased
the sun. The house was quiet. The air was still in the way
it can only be still when it floats in the emptiness of the
desert.
Padilla reached the front door and knocked hard three
times.
"Police officer. Frank Padilla with the police. Anyone
home?"
Padilla leaned close to the screen, trying to peer inside,
but it was too dark to see anything.
"Police. I'm going to open the door."
Padilla drew his flashlight, trying to recall how many
times he had tapped on doors and windows all hours of the
night, usually checking on old people someone feared had
passed away, and twice they had, but only twice.
"Officers here! Coming inside, knock knock."
Padilla pulled open the screen. He and Bigelow snapped
on their flashlights at the same time, just as Bigelow said,
"I smell something."
Their lights fell to the woman's body, early to
midthirties, face-down on the living room floor, most of her
hidden behind an ottoman that had been pushed to the center
of the room.
Bigelow said, "Oh, man."
"Watch where you step."
"Man, this is nasty."
Outside, the woman called from the street.
"What do you see? Is it a body?"
Padilla drew his gun. His heart was suddenly so loud he
had difficulty hearing. He felt sick to his stomach and
scared that Bigelow was going to shoot him. He was more
afraid of Bigelow than the murderer.
“Don’t shoot me, goddamnit. You watch what you shoot.”
Bigelow said, “Jesus, look at the walls.”
“Watch the goddamned doors and where you point that
gun. The walls can’t kill you.”
The woman was wearing frayed cutoff jean shorts and a
Frank Zappa T-shirt torn at the neck. Her shirt and legs
were streaked with crusted blood. The back of her head was
crushed, leaving her hair spiked with red gel. Another body
lay between the living room and the dining room, this one a
man. His head, like the woman's, was misshapened, and his
blood had pooled in an irregular pattern reminding Padilla
of a birthmark on his youngest daughter’s foot. The floor
was smudged as if they had tried to escape their attacker
and splatter patterns ribboned the walls and ceiling. The
weapon used to kill these people rose and fell many times,
the blood it picked up splashing the walls. The smell of
voided bowels was strong.
Padilla waved his pistol toward the hall leading to the
bedrooms, then toward the kitchen.
"I'll clear the kitchen. You wait here watching the
hall, then we’ll do the rooms back there together.”
“I ain’t moving.”
Padilla said it all louder than necessary, hoping if
someone heard him they’d jump out the window and run. He
moved past the man's body, then into the kitchen. The body
of a twelve-year-old boy was on the kitchen floor, partially
beneath a small dinette table as if he had been trying to
escape. Padilla forced himself to look away. All he thought
about now was securing the damned house so they could call
in the dicks.
Bigelow called from the living room, "Hey, Frank--"
Padilla stepped back through the door. The rooms were
bright now because Bigelow had turned on the lights.
"Frank, look at this."
Bigelow pointed to the floor.
In the light, Padilla saw little hourglass smears
pressed into the carpet; tiny shapes that Padilla studied
until he realized they were footprints. These footprints
circled the bodies, tracking from the woman to the man, then
into the kitchen and out again, around and around each body.
The prints lead into the hall toward the bedrooms.
Padilla stepped past Bigelow along the hall. The
footprints faded, grew dim, and then vanished at the final
door. Padilla stepped into the dark room, his mouth dry, and
flashed the room with his flashlight before turning on the
lights.
"My name is Frank Padilla. I'm a policeman. I'm here to
help."
The little girl sat on the floor at the foot of her bed
with her back to the wall. She held a soiled pillowcase to
her nose as she sucked her index finger. Padilla would
always remember that--she sucked the index finger, not the
thumb. She stared straight ahead, her mouth working as she
sucked. Dried blood crusted her feet. She could not have
been more than four years old.
"Honey?"
Bigelow came up behind him, stepping past to see the girl.
"Jesus, you want me to call?"
"We need an ambulance and Social Services and the
detectives. Tell them we have a multiple homicide, and a
little girl."
"Is she okay?"
"Call. Don't let the people outside near the house, and
don't let them hear you. Don't answer their questions. Close
the front door on your way out so they can’t see.”
Bigelow hurried away.
Frank Padilla holstered his weapon and stepped into the
room. He smiled at the little girl, but she didn't look at
him. She was a very small girl with knobby knees and wide
black eyes and blood smudges on her face. Padilla wanted to
go to her and hold her the way he would hold his own
daughter, but he didn't want to scare her, so he did not
approach. She was calm. Better for her to remain calm.
"It's okay, honey. It's going to be okay. You're safe now."
He didn’t know if she heard him or not.
Frank Padilla stood looking at the tiny child in the
bloody house with the miniature footprints she made as she
walked from her mother to her father to her brother, unable
to wake them, going from one to the other, circling through
red shallows like a child lost at the shores of a lake until
she finally returned to her room to hide in plain sight
against the wall. He wondered what had happened to the
little girl and what she had seen. Now, she stared at
nothing, nursing her finger like a pacifier. He wondered if
she still wore a diaper and if the diaper needed changing.
Four was old for a diaper. He wondered what she was
thinking. She was only four. Maybe she didn't know.
When the first team of detectives arrived, Padilla
agreed to stay with the little girl in her room. Everyone
thought staying in her own room would be better than having
her wait for the social workers in a radio car. They closed
the door. More detectives arrived, along with several patrol
cars, two Coroner Investigators, and a team of criminalists
from the Sheriffs. Padilla heard car doors slam and men
moving in and around the house and voices. A helicopter
circled overhead, then was gone. Padilla hoped the perp
would be found hiding in a garbage can or under a car so he
could get in a couple of hard shots before they hauled the
sonofabitch away. That would be sweet, two jawbreakers right
in the teeth, pow pow, feel the gums come apart, but Padilla
was here with the little girl and that would never happen.
Once while they waited, Max Alvarez, who was the senior
homicide investigator and Padilla’s wife’s uncle, eased open
the door. Alvarez had thirty-two years on the job,
twenty-four on South Bureau Homicide in Los Angeles plus
another eight in Temecula.
Alvarez spoke softly. He had seven children, all of
them now grown and most with families of their own.
“She okay?”
Padilla nodded, fearful that speaking might disturb her.
“How about you?”
Padilla only nodded again.
“Okay, you need a break, let us know. The social
workers are on their way. Ten minutes, tops.”
Padilla was relieved when Alvarez left. Part of him
wanted to do the cop work of finding the perps, but more of
him had assumed the role of protecting the little girl. She
was calm, so protecting her meant preserving her calm,
though he worried about what might be happening in that
little head. Maybe her being so calm was bad. Maybe a child
like this shouldn’t be calm after what happened.
Two hours and twelve minutes after Padilla and Bigelow
entered the house, field workers from the Department of
Social Services Juvenile Division arrived, two women in
business suits who spoke softly and had nice smiles. The
little girl went with them as easily as if she was going to
school, letting one of the women carry her with the woman’s
jacket covering her head so she wouldn’t see the carnage
again. Padilla followed them out, and found Alvarez in the
front yard. Alvarez’s face was greasy from the heat and his
sleeves were rolled. Padilla stood with him to watch the
social workers buckle the little girl into their car.
“How’s it look?”
“Robbery that got outta hand, most likely. We got the
murder weapon, a baseball bat they dropped behind the
garage, and a couple of shoe prints, but we’re not drowning
in evidence. And the interviews so far, nothing, no one saw
anything.”
Padilla studied Katherine Torres and the civilians who
still lined the street. Padilla wasn’t a detective but he
had been a cop long enough to understand this was bad. The
first few hours after a homicide were critical; witnesses
who knew something tended to step forward.
"That’s bullshit. Work day like this, all these women
and kids at home, they had to hear something.”
“You think wits always got something to say, you’ve
been watching too much television. I worked a case in LA,
some asshole stabbed his wife twenty-six times at eight PM
on a Thursday night, them living on the second floor of a
three-story building. This woman, her blood trail started in
the bedroom and went all the way to the hall outside their
front door, the woman dragging herself all that way,
screaming her head off, and not one other tenant heard. I
interviewed those people. They weren’t lying. Forty-one
people at home that night, having dinner, watching TV, doing
what people do, and no one heard. That’s just the way it is.
These people who were killed in here, maybe all three of
them were screaming their asses off, but no one heard
because a jet was passing or some mutt was barking or the
fuckin’ Price is Right was on television, or maybe it just
happened too damned fast. That’s my call. It happened so
fast nobody knew what to do and it never even occurred to
them to scream. What the fuck. You can’t say why people do
anything.”
Alvarez seemed both pissed off and spent after that, so
Padilla let it ride. The social workers got themselves
buckled in, started their car.
"Why you think they didn’t kill the little girl?"
"I don't know. Maybe they figured she couldn't finger
them, her being so little, but my guess right now is they
didn't see her. The way her footprints lead back to her
room, she was probably in there sleeping or playing when it
happened and they left before she came out. We’ll let the
psychologists talk to her about that. You never know. We get
lucky, maybe she saw everything and can tell us exactly what
happened and who did the deed. If she can’t, then maybe
we’ll never know. That’s the way it is with murder.
Sometimes you never know. I gotta get back to work.”
Alvarez joined another detective and the two of them
walked around the side of the house. Padilla didn’t want to
go back to work; he wanted to go home, take a shower, then
drink a cold beer in his backyard with his wife while his
children watched television inside, but, instead, he stood
and watched.
The social workers were slowly working their car around
the civilians and cops crowding the street. Padilla couldn’t
see the little girl. She was too small to see, as if the car
had swallowed her. Padilla had been a cop long enough to
know that the murders that had occurred tonight would haunt
everyone involved for the rest of their lives. The neighbors
who lined the tape would worry that the killers might
return. Some would feel survivor's guilt, and others would
grow fearful. Insecurities would flare, marriages would
fail, and more than one family would sell their house to get
out of Dodge before it happened to them. That’s the way it
was with murder. It would haunt the people who lived here
and the cops who investigated the case and the friends and
relatives of the victims and the little girl most of all.
The murder would change her. She would become someone other
than she would have been. She would grow into someone else.
Padilla watched the car turn onto the highway, then
crossed himself.
Padilla whispered, "I'll pray for you."
He turned and went back into the house.
Next of Kin
1.
They called me to view the body on a lost spring
morning when darkness webbed my house. Some nights are like
that; more now than before. Picture the World's Greatest
Detective, reluctant subject of sidebar articles in the Los
Angeles Times and Los Angeles magazine, stretched on his
couch in a redwood A-frame overlooking the city, not really
sleeping at 3:58 AM when the phone rang. I thought it was a
reporter, but answered anyway.
"Hello."
"This is Detective Kelly Diaz with LAPD. I apologize
about the time, but I'm trying to reach Elvis Cole."
Her voice was coarse, reflecting the early hour. I
pushed into a sitting position and cleared my throat. Police
who call before sunrise have nothing to offer but bad news.
"How'd you get my number?"
I changed my home number when the news stories broke,
but reporters and cranks still called.
"One of the criminalists had it or got it, I'm not
sure. Either way, I'm sorry for calling like this, but we
have a homicide. We have reason to believe you know the
deceased."
Something sharp stabbed behind my eyes, and I swung my
feet to the floor.
"Who is it?"
"We'd like you to come down here, see for yourself.
We're downtown near Twelfth and Hill Street. I can send a
radio car if that would help."
The house was dark. Sliding glass doors opened to a
deck that jutted like a diving platform over the canyon
behind my house. The lights on the opposite ridge were murky
with the low clouds and mist. I cleared my throat again.
"Is it Joe Pike?"
"Pike's your partner, right? The ex-cop with the
sunglasses?"
"Yes. He has arrows tattooed on the outside of his
delts. They're red."
She covered the phone, but I heard muffled voices. She
was asking. My chest filled with a growing pressure, and I
didn't like that she had to ask because her asking meant
maybe it was.
"Is it Pike?"
"No, this isn't Pike. This guy has tattoos, but not
like that. I'm sorry if I scared you that way. Listen, we
can send a car."
I closed my eyes, letting the pressure fade.
"I don't know anything about it. What makes you think I
know?"
"The victim said some things before he died. Come down
and take a look. I can send a car."
"Am I a suspect?"
"Nothing like that. We just want to see if you can help
with the ID."
"What was your name?"
"Diaz--"
"Okay, Diaz--it's four in the morning, I haven't slept
in two months, and I'm not in the mood. If you think I know
this guy, then you think I'm a suspect. Everyone who knows a
homicide victim is a suspect until they're cleared, so just
tell me who you got and ask whatever it is you want to ask."
"What it is, we have a deceased Anglo male we believe
to be the victim of a robbery. They got his wallet, so I
can't give you a name. We're hoping you can help with that
part. Here, listen--"
"Why do you think I know him?"
She plowed on with the description as if I hadn't spoken.
"Anglo male, dyed black hair thin on top, brown eyes,
approximately seventy years but he could be older, I guess,
and he has crucifix tattoos on both palms."
"Why do you think I know him?"
"He has more tats of a religious nature or his
arms--Jesus, the Virgin, things like that. None of this
sounds familiar?"
"I don't have any idea who you're talking about."
"What we have is a deceased male as I've described, one
gunshot to the chest. By his appearance and location, he
appears indigent, but we're working on that. I'm the officer
who found him. He was still conscious at that time and said
things that suggested you would recognize his description."
"I don't."
"Look, Cole, I'm not trying to be difficult. It would
be better if--"
"What did he say?"
Diaz didn't answer right away.
"He said he was your father."
I sat without moving in my dark house. I had started
that night in bed, but ended on the couch, hoping the steady
patter of rain would quiet my heart, but sleep had not come.
"Just like that, he told you he was my father."
"I tried to get a statement, but all he said was
something about you being his son, and then he passed.
You're the same Elvis Cole they wrote the stories about,
aren't you? In the Times?"
"Yes."
"He had the clippings. I figured you would recognize
the tats if you knew him, me thinking he was your father,
but it sounds like you don't."
My voice came out hoarse, and the catch embarrassed me.
"I never met my father. I don't know anything about
him, and as far as I know he doesn't know me."
"We want you to come take a look, Mr. Cole. We have a few
questions."
"I thought I wasn't a suspect."
"At this time you aren't, but we still have the
questions. We sent a radio car. It should be pulling up just
about now."
Approaching headlights brightened my kitchen as she
said it. I heard the car roll to a slow stop outside my
house, and more light filled my front entry. They had
radioed their status, and someone with Diaz had signaled
their arrival.
"Okay, Diaz, tell them to shut their lights. No point
in waking the neighbors."
"The car is a courtesy, Mr. Cole. In case you were
unable to drive after you saw him."
"Sure. That's why you kept offering the car like it was
my choice even though it was already coming."
"It's still your choice. If you want to take your own
car you can follow them. We just have a few questions."
The glow outside vanished, and once more my home was in
darkness.
"Okay, Diaz, I'm coming. Tell them to take it easy out
there. I have to get dressed."
"Not a problem. We'll see you in a few minutes."
I put down the phone but still did not move. I had not
moved in hours. Outside, a light rain fell as quietly as a
whisper. I must have been waiting for Diaz to call. Why else
would I have been awake that night and all the other nights
except to wait like a lost child in the woods, a forgotten
child waiting to be found?
After a while I dressed, then followed the radio car to
see the dead.
*
2.
The police were set up at both ends of an alley across
from a flower shop that had opened to receive its morning
deliveries. Yellow tape was stretched across the alley to
keep people out even though the streets were deserted; the
only people I saw were four workers from the flower mart and
the cops. I followed the radio car past an SID van, more
radio cars, and a couple of Crown Victorias to park across
the street. No rain was falling there in the heart of the
city, but the clouds hung low, and threatened.
The uniforms climbed out of their radio car and told me
to wait at the tape. The senior officer went into the alley
for the detectives, but his younger partner stayed with me.
We hadn't spoken at my house, but now he studied me with his
thumbs hooked onto his gun belt.
"You the one was on TV?"
"No, he was the other one."
"I wasn't trying to be rude. I remember seeing you on
the news."
I didn't say anything. He watched me a moment longer,
then turned to the alley.
"If that was you, I guess you've seen a homicide scene
before."
"More than one."
The body was crumpled beside a Dumpster midway down the
alley, but my view was blocked by a woman in a tee-shirt and
shorts, and two men in dark sport coats. The woman's
tee-shirt was fresh and white, and made her stand out in the
dingy alley as if she was on fire. The older suit was a
thick man with shabby hair, and the younger detective was a
tall, spike-straight guy with a pinched face. When the
uniform reached them, they traded a few words, then the
woman came back with him. She smelled of medicinal alcohol.
"I'm Diaz. Thanks for coming out."
Kelly Diaz had short black hair, blunt fingers, and the
chunky build of an aging athlete. A delicate silver heart
swayed on a chain around her neck. It didn't go with the
rest of her.
I said, "I'm not going to know this man."
"I'd still like you to take a look and answer a few
questions. You okay with that?"
"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."
"I'm just making sure you understand you don't have to
talk to us. You have any doubts about it you should call a
lawyer."
"I'm good, Diaz. If I wasn't good, I would have shot it
out with these guys up in the hills."
The younger cop laughed, but his partner didn't. Diaz
lifted the tape, and I stooped under and walked with her to
the Dumpster. When we reached the others, Diaz introduced
us. The senior detective was a Central Station homicide
supervisor named Terry O'Loughlin; the other guy was a D-1
named Jeff Pardy. O'Loughlin shook my hand and thanked me
for coming, but Pardy didn't offer to shake. He stood
between me and the body like I was an invading army and he
was determined not to give ground.
O'Loughlin said, "Okay, let him see."
The cops parted like a dividing sea so I could view the
body. The alley was bright with lights they had set up to
work the scene. The dead man was on his right side with his
right arm stretched from his chest and his left down along
his side; his shirt was wet with blood and had been
scissored open. His head was shaped like an upside down
pyramid with a broad forehead and pointy chin. His hair
showed the stark black of a bad dye job and a thin widow's
peak. He didn't look particularly old, just weathered and
sad. The crucifix inked into his left palm made it look like
he was holding the cross, and more tattoos showed on his
stomach under the blood. A single gunshot wound was visible
two inches to the left of his sternum.
Diaz said, "You know him?"
I cocked my head to see him as if we were looking at
each other. His eyes were open and would remain that way
until a mortician closed them. They were brown, like mine,
but dulled by the loss of their tears. That's the first
thing you learn when you work with the dead: We're gone when
we no longer cry.
"What do you think? You know this guy?"
"Uh-uh."
"Ever seen him before?"
"No, I can't help you."
When I looked up, all three of them were watching me.
O'Loughlin flicked his hand at Pardy.
"Show him the stories."
Pardy took a manila envelope from his coat. The
envelope contained three articles about me and a little boy
who had been kidnapped earlier in the fall. The articles
hadn't been clipped from the original newspaper; they had
been copied, and the articles clipped from the copies. All
three articles made me out to be more than I was or ever had
been; Elvis Cole, the World's Greatest Detective, hero of
the week. I had seen them before, and seeing them again
depressed me. I handed them back without reading them.
"Okay, he had some news clips about me. Looks like he
copied them at the library."
Diaz continued staring at me.
"He told me he was trying to find you."
"When this stuff hit the news I got calls from total
strangers saying I owed them money and asking for loans. I
got death threats, fan letters, and time share offers, also
from total strangers. After the first fifty letters I threw
away my mail without opening it and turned off my answering
machine. I don't know what else to tell you. I've never seen
him before."
O'Loughlin said, "Maybe he hung around outside your
office. You could have seen him there."
"I stopped going to my office."
"You have any idea why he would think he's your father?"
"Why would total strangers think I'd loan them money?"
Pardy said, "Were you down here or anywhere near here
tonight?"
There it was. The coroner's office was responsible for
identifying John Doe victims and notifying their next of
kin. Whenever the police took action to identify a victim
they were acting to further their investigation. Diaz had
phoned me at four AM to see if I was home; she had sent a
car to confirm I was home, and asked me down so they could
gauge my reaction. They might even have a witness squirreled
nearby, giving me the eye.
I said, "I was home all night, me and my cat."
Pardy edged closer.
"Can the cat confirm it?"
"Ask him."
Diaz said, "Take it soft, Pardy. Jesus."
O'Loughlin warned off Pardy with a look.
"I don't want this to become adversarial. Cole knows we
have to cover the base. He's going out of his way."
I said, "I was home all night. I spoke to a friend
about nine-thirty. I can give you his name and number, but
that's the only time I can cover."
Pardy glanced at O'Loughlin, but didn't seem
particularly impressed.
"That's great, Cole; we'll check it out. Would you be
willing to give us a GSR? In the interest of helping us. Not
to be adversarial."
O'Loughlin frowned at him, but didn't object. A gun
shot residue test would show them whether or not I had
recently fired a gun--if I hadn't washed my hands or worn
gloves.
O'Loughlin checked his watch as if he suspected this
was going to be a waste of time, but here we were and there
was the dead man. Diaz called over a criminalist, and had me
sign a waiver stating I knew my rights and was cooperating
without coercion. The criminalist rubbed two cloth swabs
over my left and right hands, then dropped each into its own
glass tube. While the criminalist worked, I gave Pardy Joe
Pike's name and number to confirm the call, then asked
O'Loughlin if they made the murder for a botched robbery. He
checked his watch again as if answering me was just another
waste of time.
"We don't make it for anything right now. We're six
blocks from Skid Row, Cole. We have more murders down here
than any other part of the city. These people will kill each
other over six cents or a blow job, and every goddamned
murder clears the same. He sure as hell wasn't carrying
government secrets."
No, he was carrying news stories about me.
"Sounds like you've got it figured out."
"If you'd seen as many killings down here as me, you'd
have it figured, too."
O'Loughlin suddenly realized he was talking too much and
seemed embarrassed. He glanced at Diaz.
"Kelly, you good with letting Jeff have the lead on
this? It'll be a good learning experience."
"Fine by me."
"You good with that, Jeff?"
"You bet. I'm on it."
Pardy turned away to call over the coroner's people,
and O'Loughlin went with him. Two morgue techs broke out a
gurney and began setting it up. I studied the body again.
His clothes were worn but clean, and his face wasn't burned
dark like the people who live on the streets. When I glanced
up at Diaz, she was staring at him, too.
"He doesn't look homeless."
"He's probably fresh out of detention. That's good news
for us; his prints will be in the system."
The alley was a long block between commercial
storefronts and an abandoned hotel. The letters from the old
neon 'hotel' sign loomed over the dark street. I could read
the hotel's faded name painted on the bricks--Hotel Farnham.
But without the police lights, it would have been impossible
to read. The darkness bothered me. The body was a good sixty
feet from the near street, so he either took a short cut he
knew well or came with someone else. It would have been
scary to come this way alone.
"It was you who found him?"
"I was over on Grand when I heard the shot--one cap. I
ran past at first, but I heard him flopping around in here
and there he was. I tried to get a handle on the bleeding,
but it was too much. It was awful, man . . . Jesus."
She raised her hands like she was trying to get them
out of the blood, and I saw they were shaking. The clothes
she wore were probably spares from another cop's trunk. She
had probably changed out of her bloody clothes in the
ambulance and washed with the alcohol. She probably wanted
to throw away her blood-soaked clothes, but she was a cop
with a cop's pay so she would wash them herself when she got
home, then have them dry-cleaned and hope the blood came
out. Diaz turned away. The coroner techs had their gurney
up, and were pulling on latex gloves.
I said, "No wallet?"
"No, they got it. All he had were the clippings, a
nickel, and two pennies."
"No keys?"
She suddenly sighed, and seemed anxious and tired.
"Nothing. Look, you can take off, Cole. I want to
finish up and get home to bed. It's been a long night."
I didn't move.
"He mentioned me by name?"
"That's right."
"What did he say?"
"I don't remember exactly, something about trying to
find you, but I was asking what happened--I was asking about
the shooter. He said he had to find his son. He said he had
come all this way to find his boy, and he never met you, but
he wanted to make up the lost years. I asked him who, and he
told me your name. Maybe that isn't exactly what he said,
but it was something like that."
She glanced at me again, then looked back at his body.
"Listen, Cole, I've arrested people who thought they
were from Mars. I've busted people who thought they were on
Mars. You heard O'Loughlin--we got bums, junkies, drunks,
crackheads, schizophrenics, you name it, down here. You
don't know what kind of mental illness this guy had."
"But you still have to clear me."
"If you were home all night, don't worry about it.
He'll be in the system. I'll let you know when the CI pulls
a name."
I turned away from the body and saw Pardy staring at
me. His pinched face looked intent.
"It's not necessary, Diaz. Don't bother."
"You sure? I don't mind."
"I'm sure."
"Okay, well, whatever; your call."
I started back to my car, but she stopped me.
"Hey, Cole?"
"What?"
"I read the articles. That was some hairy stuff, man,
what you did saving that boy. Congratulations."
I walked away without answering, but stopped again when
I reached the yellow tape. Diaz had joined O'Loughlin and
Pardy as the coroner's people bagged the body.
"Diaz."
She and Pardy both turned. Rigor had frozen the corpse.
The techs leaned hard on the arms to fold them into the bag.
A hand reached out from the dark blue plastic like it was
pointing at me. They pushed it inside and pulled the zipper.
"When you get the ID, let me know."
I left them to finish their job.