Expert Witness (33 page)

He pumped his arms and legs and picked up speed, shooting through the dark, sensing drivers taking note as he, too, grabbed the fence and redirected himself. Behind him he heard a car door slam and tires screech. Liz was giving chase but she had come to an abrupt halt, the way blocked by the stopped cars. She opened the door and slammed it again as she took off after the two men on foot.

When Archer made the turn, it took no more than a millisecond to figure out why the cars weren’t moving. The twice-a-week train was making its run. Archer’s eyes went to the train then back to Hernandez and back again. He measured the speed of the locomotive and Hernandez’s trajectory. The man was going to have to make a choice sooner than later. There were two: veer left and scramble over the cars that were nosed up against the crossing arms, or go right to a miles-long straight away that ran past local businesses.

Archer stepped it up, guessing Hernandez would go right. That wouldn’t be good for him. A right turn meant the person with the most stamina would win, and that person wasn’t Archer. The only chance he had was to catch Hernandez before he got to the crossing and made the turn.

Breathing hard, sweating like a pig, Archer stepped it up. Close. Closer. He was now so close he could hear Hernandez panting and see the sweat on his shirt.  Archer’s right hand shot out. His fingers scraped the man’s back then he lost contact. Hernandez was within his grasp but every time he thought he had him, Xavier found another spurt of energy. Archer drew his gun though he knew there would be hell to pay if he used it. But he knew a good defense attorney, and he would happily put his life in her hands. If she wasn’t around to defend him, then he didn’t care what happened after his bullet found its way into Xavier Hernandez’s head.

Archer fell back a few steps. He could hear Liz’s shoes pounding the pavement behind him, and he could only hope that the backup she called for was spreading out to catch Hernandez whether he went left or right. But that’s not what he really wanted; he wanted Xavier Hernandez in his hands; he wanted to bring him down. One handful of shirt would be enough to do it.  The gun in his hand was heavy and sweat made it slick to hold, so Archer stuffed it in his belt. Both hands free again, he made that one last heroic effort to catch up to the younger man, but Hernandez wasn’t turning left or right. He was heading straight for the train. With superhuman effort, Archer sprinted.

“Hernandez! Stop! Stop!”

Archer reached out, extending his arm until he was sure it was going to pop out of its socket. He stretched his fingers. He was so close, a prayer away. All he had to do was knock the guy off his feet and roll him away from the train, but it was too little too late. Hernandez bolted past the red and white striped barriers and was airborne. For a split second he was alternatingly bathed in the glow of the red and white lights. His knee was raised, his arms extended as he vaulted in front of the locomotive.

Archer saw it all: the conductor swearing, his expression going from shock to fury, his shoulders pulling back as he strained to brake. Archer thought he heard people in the cars gasping in shock, lamenting in dismay, shouting out with hope. Liz was calling behind him. They would lose Hernandez unless. . .

That was when Archer did the unthinkable.

 He catapulted over the barrier; positive he could hit Hernandez hard enough to push them both to the other side of the tracks. In a split second he was airborne too and his hand clamped down on Xavier Hernandez’s shoulder. For one miraculous moment, Archer had his man. The last thing he saw was Xavier Hernandez turn his head to look, not at the train, but at Archer’s hand on his shoulder.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:

A-1 Storage, El Segundo

It took an hour and a half to get traffic moving again on Sepulveda. Commuters had gone from curious to cross to downright irate as the cleanup effort went on too long. They barely waited for the last of the emergency vehicles to clear the road before they revved their engines and went on about their business.

Liz hung out long enough to give a blow-by-blow of what went down to the investigating officer, offer some words of exoneration to the shaken conductor and watch as Xavier Hernandez and Archer were stabilized and loaded in to separate ambulances. When that was all done, Liz headed back to A-1 Storage, only to stop as she stepped over the tracks. The uniformed guys had missed something, and she didn’t want them to have it. She bent quickly and swiped up Archer’s revolver. Looking over her shoulder, seeing no one was paying any attention to her, she stuffed it into the inside pocket of her jacket and went on her way. Liz wished she’d stuck around to help clean up when she saw Benny waiting for her. He rushed up to her so fast that he overshot and had to retrace his steps to catch up.

“Remember, you said none of this was going to be my problem? Remember you said that?”

“There will be an officer around soon to take your statement,” Liz said wearily.

“Well, I’m ready.  I’ll give him a statement. I’m going to tell them you forced me to do it, to open that unit. Flashing that badge and everything. I only opened it ‘cause you told me I would be doing my civil duty.”

“Civic, Benny. Civic duty,” Liz corrected.

“I don’t care. I’m just saying there was some duress there, right?”

“Sure, Benny. No worries. You tell ‘em I threatened to hold your head in one of those toilets if you didn’t do everything I said. You tell ’em that, Benny.” She raised her hand over her head. Smart man that he was, Benny fell back and didn’t follow. Had he kept up that nonsense, Liz would have taken him out.

 On her own, Liz made a beeline for the unit Xavier had been trying to get into. Pausing in front of it, she took stock: the lock was off, and the door was partially open. Liz hitched her pants, got down on her hip, rolled onto her back and stuck her head under the corrugated roll-up. The tangential light from outside was enough to show her that no one was inside, dead or alive. She scooted back, stood up, looked for a switch, realized this must be an older unit and heaved the door all the way up manually. Given the circumstances, she had probable cause to search, not that it would have made any difference if she didn’t.

“Hey!” Benny was yelling at her. “Don’t go in there. I’ll call my boss. I’ll call the cops. Hey!”

Liz looked over her shoulder. Benny was framed in the office door, watching her every move, looking like he needed to pee bad as he moved from one foot to the other.  Her first instinct was to flip him off.  Instead, she ignored him and flipped on the light.  

Inside, the unit was exactly like Havier Hernandez’s except it wasn’t filled with toilets and inflatable dolls. In fact, it wasn’t filled with much of anything but the stuff that was in it was more than interesting.  Liz went to the center of the space, planted herself and did a slow three-sixty. There was a bed: frame, mattress, sheets and a pillow. It was neatly made and better than you’d get in lock up, but that wasn’t saying much. Still, it struck her as odd since his place in L.A. was a mess

Check on the bare walls, too. His montage in L.A. had been meticulously created: photos mounted with care, pins piercing the exact center of the prints, Isaiah Wilson’s book cover spread out neatly and a calendar with uniformed red X’s across the days of the week. If Hernandez was so fixated on the players in his trial, why live here for weeks with nothing to remind him of his loathing?

“Why leave the notes?” she said aloud.

 Liz turned and put her hand on her hip and muttered to herself.  Why didn’t he just take the women, kill them and be done with it. He didn’t advertise when he took Susie Atkins or Janey Wilson.

She walked over to some storage boxes that were open and stacked on their side to create a make shift bureau. There was a kit with insulin in the top one. She picked up a prescription bottle. It was his seizure medicine. Liz put it back exactly as she found it. In the next one there were a few t-shirts, some socks and underwear.

None of this was making any sense. Hernandez had laid a trail with boulders, not breadcrumbs, to his place in L.A.  Tracking his movements once they found out about the GPS wasn’t rocket science. So what did he want them to see? What did he want them to do once they found all this? Perhaps this was a trap, and they had been seconds away from tripping some wire. But there were no weapons, no booby traps, nothing that looked out of place here or in the L.A. house.

Then again, could he simply have been taunting the three who received the notes? He probably counted on the ineptness of the cops to keep him safe. The system, after all, had proved to be filled with fools: reduced charges and a walk on compassionate release gave him good reason to assume they were all idiots.

The
why
of Bates and Gardener, though, was still out of reach.  Liz couldn’t come up with one good reason why they were snatched. Targeting Daniel made marginal sense, yet he was just one of many witnesses. Still, if Hernandez was fixated on people that supposedly did him wrong, why not take Daniel or Isaiah first? Either of those guys would have been easier than taking out a tough cookie like Josie Bates. Maybe the men on that list were teasers, highlighted for no other reason than to throw off the authorities. Hernandez had killed two girls; now he had taken two women. Could it be as simple as that?

“Find anything interesting?”

Startled, Liz pivoted, shoving back her jacket to show the gun at her waist. She stopped short of drawing it, straightened, rotated her shoulders under her denim jacket and tried to look cool.

“Geeze. You’re taking a chance, Captain,” Liz said, unable to make eye contact with Hagarty.

“That’s funny coming from you.”

He was dressed in a sport shirt and jeans, hardly the sharp togs of a man on duty, and that meant he’d been called away from family time. Everyone in the office knew what family time meant to Hagarty, so Liz stayed quiet while he walked into the unit, checking out everything inside except her.

“So, did you find anything?” 

“What you see is what you get. Bed, camp toilet.” She pointed to the back of the unit. “Hot plate. Some food. All the comforts of home.”

“Charming,” Hagarty muttered.

“It’s better than the place he was living in -”

Liz caught herself, but it was too late.  Hagarty looked over his shoulder and raised a brow. She had been told to step down long before touring Xavier Hernandez’s place. She felt another big, black demerit mark foul the space above her head.

“Clothes. Extra blanket.” Liz held up a blanket, trying to distract Hagarty. “Like he would need it in this hot box. Still has a tag on it. I can run that down and see if anyone remembers him buying it.”

Hagarty stood over the stacked packing crates. “Lot of medication here.”

“Hernandez has some problems.”

“Five bucks and change,” Hagarty muttered. “He liked to read.”

“Yeah?” Liz walked over to join him.

“Wouldn’t call it literature.” Hagarty poked at the book. It would have been kind to call it erotica, and honest to call it porn.

“No accounting for taste.” Liz said.

“Paper? Pencils? Pens?”

“Nope,” Liz answered.

“Okay, then.” Hagarty blew a breath through pursed lips. He stuck his hands deep into his pant pockets. He kept circling like a dog trying to find just the right spot to flop.

Liz barely breathed. He wasn’t going to engage, and whatever was coming wasn’t good. When he faced Liz, she looked right at him: chin up, shoulders squared, thumbs hooked over her belt. Liz wasn’t defiant; she was just steeling herself for the rumble. Any other time Hagarty would have been amused. He liked Liz Driscoll. She was an arrogant little fighter, and that actually made her a good cop; just not the cop he wanted on his force. Hermosa Beach was too small for someone determined to work outside the box, and this wasn’t a made for TV movie where everything was sure to work out in the end.

“How much do you know?” Liz asked.

“I know this has gotten out of hand,” Hagarty said. “And I know I was clear that I didn’t want you pursuing the matter. Arnson and Levinsky are excellent detectives, and they have the resources. We are no match for that kind of LAPD strength, Driscoll.”

Hagarty walked a few more paces, turned and leaned back against the cold, metal wall. He looked at her like a father would, or at least the way Liz imagined a father would.

“I had a big case when I was just five years into my stint as a detective in Riverside. It was incredible: media all over me, brain working overtime, leads piling up and making no sense. I’d be up at night pacing, trying to figure it all out.”  He snuffed a laugh as if to underscore that he had once been a reckless buck and hindsight wasn’t pretty.

“Did you figure it out?” Hagarty’s eyes went to hers. His expression softened. He was grateful she asked.

“I did. Got my man, and I thought I was invincible. It was a hell of a feeling, Driscoll. It was like I had the world on a string, and that feeling doesn’t end with the collar. There’s the trial, the interviews, the knowledge that the starry-eyed kid who walked into the academy dreaming of fighting for justice was actually a warrior.” Hagarty sniffed. “My wife said I wasn’t the man she married, and she was right. I thought I was better than that man.”