MOSAICS: A Thriller (9 page)

He reached for the box and looked for himself. “No laptop?”

I shook my head. “Does the inventory say laptop somewhere?”

Reading glasses precariously hanging from the tip of his nose, Satish flipped through the pages of the inventory. “Home desktop.”

“Was it seized?” I asked.

Satish frowned, flipped
more pages, then dropped his chin and stared at the boxes on the table from above the rim of his reading glasses. “Well, it does say they looked at emails and personal documents, but I don’t see no computer here.”

I sifted through the box of CDs, mentally count
ing. There were about a dozen data CDs and a couple of jump drives. “Maybe it’s still at Electronics. Did they find anything interesting?”

“Persona
l emails to friends. Nothing out of the ordinary or raising flags. All data on the CDs was from work.” He clicked his tongue. “Browsing history didn’t raise any red flags either, apart from the usual gay and lesbian internet rooms and the men-seeking-men pages on Craigslist.”

I pushed away the box with the digital evidence and went through Callahan’s personal belongings. “Tell me something I don’t know. I’ve seen those ads. Those loons, they hook up, get high on meth, and fuck for three straight
days. When they wake up they have HIV. Where did he work?”

Satish went back to his notes. “
Used
to work for a local web design company.”

“Positive on a drug test?” said judgmental me.

“Nope. Been laid off last fall. The company was going through a hard time. Track, there wasn’t any meth in his veins and no drugs were found in his apartment. The only traces found were from his pockets.”

“You’re thinking planted?”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking. It just doesn’t add up.”

I fished several things out
of the personal belongings box: prescription drugs, a battered leather wallet with no cash but several credit cards, a box of condoms, an address book with only three entries. I brought each item to my nose. They smelled of overused deodorant and cheap perfume, of dog hairs and passive smoke. They smelled forlorn.

“No cell phone among hi
s personal items. Who doesn’t have a cell phone these days?”

Satish went back to his notebook. “The murder book says, ‘Missing.’ The killer probably took it. Phone logs were subpoenaed but all they got was the usual calls to friends, plus a couple of business
es.”

“What about his family?”

“Family lives back in Georgia and hasn’t spoken to him ever since he’s moved to California.”

“Loving family.”
I plucked the prescription drugs out of the box—four orange pill bottles—and brought them to my nose before examining the labels. They had all been issued by a J. Thompson, MD, except for the last one, which bore the name A. Liu, MD.

Ha
.

The label had peeled off at the corner and the only surviving part of Callahan’s name was the C. I opened it and sniffed inside. Didn’t smell familiar.

“Hey,” Satish said, “this is interesting. Callahan was laid off on September fifth, last year.”

“Right around labor day. Very thoughtful of his employer.”

Satish glanced me from above the rim of his reading glasses. “Here’s the thing, though. According to his monthly bank statements, he’s made bi-weekly cash deposits starting October twenty-first. Amounts vary, but they all seem to be around five-hundred, give or take a few bucks.”

“Unemployment benefits?”

“Nah, those are much less. One-twenty, direct deposit from the state every two weeks. The rest are cash deposits he made himself.”

“When was the last one?”

He turned the page over. “Looks like—January third.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Hmm. He was killed on the thirtieth.”

Satish tapped his notebook with the tip of his pen. “There are many non-kosher ways one can get by in L.A.”

“Yeah, and most get you killed. What’s going through your mind, Sat?”

He sneered, white teeth and all. “How ’bout a date at the Belmont, you and I?”

My left brow shot up. The Belmont used to
be a gay bar at Fifth and Main—Satish’s beat back when he was a street copper.

“I’m too picky
to go on a date with you, Sat,” I replied. “Besides, they tore it down five years ago.”

He shook his head and sighed. “Skid row is not what it used to be anymore. At least the Regent is still there. You know, one day—”

“One day you chased a loon inside the Regent and it was all dark and your shoes were popping on the floor because it was covered in manly goo,” I said. “Yes, Sat, I know. I think you told me that story a thousand times.”

The Regent was a porn theater right next to the Belmont. Certain things come in pairs, like balls.

“Did I tell you that when me and my partner shouted, ‘Freeze, asshole,’ they
all
shot their hands up in the air?”

“Yeah, you told me that
part too. Look. We should get ahold of Callahan’s computer, find out what user name he had on Craigslist, post an ad in his name, and see what happens. In the meantime, will you look at the label on this prescription bottle?” I rolled the pill bottle from the Liu doctor over to him.

He
smiled dreamily and picked up the bottle from the table. His eyes were still chasing memories. “Me and my partner, we started arguing on who was supposed to frisk the suspect.” He chuckled. “His zipper was still—”

“Down” I leaned back in my chair and laced my fingers. “You told me that part too.”

Satish stared at the label on the prescription bottle. “Man,” he said. “Can’t read anymore. As I grow older, I don’t get any younger.”

“Seems to be a common problem. Look at the doc’s name in there—A. Liu. What do you make of that?”

“You’re thinking
Amy
Liu?”

“Didn’t you say she specialized on HIV?”

Satish checked the evidence log. “Hmm. Strange. The pill bottle doesn’t seem to be logged in here. There’s a lot of Liu’s in L.A. If it really was Amy Liu, wouldn’t Henkins mention the connection?”

I dropped my chin. “You sure about that?”

Antagonism between divisions was no secret, especially when cases got transferred to the RHD. Even in the hottest investigations, battles for turf often turned into hold-ups and innuendos.

Satish rose to his feet and put Callahan’s bank statements back inside the evidence box. “Whether or not Henkins keeps her secrets, it’s worth checking out. Let’s go, I think we’ve seen enough for now.”

Man, I love my agency. Old fashioned bureaucracy and solid spirit of cooperation.

*  *  *

The jagged skyline of Bunker Hill emerged through a film of haze. A chopper circled over Dodger Stadium, the Five below a ten-lane river snaking into downtown. All around, under a yellow dome of smog, treetops and palm fronds speckled the expanse of buildings and houses.

Another sizzling day in the City of Angels
.

“Nice view,” I said, tapping the windowpane. “The glass could use some cleaning, though.”

Satish slammed a drawer closed and opened a second one. “We’ll put a memo in the murder book.”

The building was new—the latest addition to the UTech medical campus in Boyle Heights. It hosted genomics labs on the lower floors, and offices and conference rooms on the upper ones. Construction had begun five years earlier and stalled several times until one of the most affluent UTech alumni, philanthropist Amintore Schnell, poured a stunning fifty million donation into the completion of the project. Eight months later
, the Schnell Molecular Genomics Core saw its grand opening—another sleek tower rising from the hills of Boyle Heights.

Amy Liu’s office was long and narrow, with skewed walls that made the furniture sit at weird angles. The wall facing west was a floor-to-ceiling windowpane looking over downtown, a view Amy hid behind stacks of research papers, a printer and two computer screens. Somebody had left flowers next to her keyboard, and needles of dried-up petals spilled over her desk.

Having found nothing of interest in her drawers, Satish moved to a metal file cabinet standing against the north wall between two armchairs upholstered in red.

I knew Amy’s killer had taken something from her home office. I’d detected the sweet, almost nauseating odor from the tiles on a pile of papers on her home desk. What if he hadn’t found what he’d been looking for? What if he came back here, to her work office, searching for more? I perused the small room trying to detect the same scent, but
all I got was fresh paint from the walls and formaldehyde from the brand new bookshelves. I sat in her chair, flipped through the stacks of papers and sniffed her keyboard, mouse, pens. Same result: only the victim’s smell, mixed with the artificial scent of medical labs.

On one of the shelves was a picture of Amy Liu surr
ounded by a bunch of other docs, all in white coats, stethoscopes dangling from their necks, arms crossed, and confident smiles sprawled across their handsome faces. They looked like they’d come straight out of a highway billboard.

“Do doctors live in soaps?”

Satish fished some papers out of one of the cabinet drawers and leafed through. “Let me tell you something, Track. When I was eight, I told my mom I wanted to be a doctor. She laughed and I was hurt. I said,
Why, Ma? You think I’m not smart enough
?

Oh, you’re smart all right.
She patted my head and kissed me on the forehead.
But doctors need to be handsome, honey
.”

“Of course,” Satish went on, “she changed her mind ten years later when I told her I wanted to be a cop.”

“She was happy, I suppose?”

He sighed. “She was devastated.”

“What? Why?”

“People in India don’t generally li
ke cops. My old man, though, was thrilled. He thought a cop in the family is always a good insurance plan. I ended up being an ABCD cop.”

I stood by the door and looked down the hallway. “ABCD?”

“American-Born Confused Desi.”

The hallway was a long corridor with curving walls. Whoever designed the place had an issue with straight angles.

“Hey, Sat,” I said. “I’m gonna take a look around, ’kay?”

Satish didn’t reply. He went on opening and closing drawers and mumbling within himself about India, cops, and strange alphabet acronyms.

The bending corridor converged into a lobby with tall windowpanes that once again displayed the same, hazy view of downtown and Bunker Hill. On the opposite side was a reception area enclosed by a sleek, semi-circular desk. Two rows of black leather chairs faced one another in the waiting area. A kid with a few chin hairs and a lot of pimples sat in one of the chairs. He stared intently at the screen of his cell phone tapping it with his thumbs. The thumbs were a blur, the rest of him was as still as a statue.

A hand slid across the reception desk and pushed a clipboard
toward me. “Your name and who you’ve got your appointment with.” A pen followed. “Insurance information in the second sheet.”

And then
a scent
happened. It wafted my way in little, syncopated waves—the smell of salty, sun-bathed skin, and the balmy fragrance of an exotic beach.
She
appeared shortly after, hips humming and calves flexing under the hem of a lab coat. They were nice calves, the kind your eyes trip over when jogging at the shore.

The syncopated scent buzzed
in my ears at the rhythm of Jobim’s tune
The Girl from Ipanema
.

“Mr. Cress?”

Ipanema Girl stood with a clipboard clutched to her chest, the wake of her scent crooning in my head. From the row of black leather seats, a man raised his head, blinked a couple of times then returned his attention to the magazine on his lap. The kid with the cell phone froze his thumbs for a fraction of a second. 

“Mr. Cress?” Ipanema G
irl asked, squeezing the clipboard to her chest.

Her eyes rested on me, hopeful.

Hell, you don’t disappoint a girl like that.

I smiled, she smiled back. “Right this way, Mr. Cress,” she said, cocking her head to the side and letting a black lock brush her long neck.

And who was I not to follow?

She crossed the waiting room, heads turning as she
gently swayed
by the rows of chairs.

The
tune hummed in my head and somehow escaped my lips.

“Sorry, did you just say something?”

I froze. “Me? Er—no.”

Her black lashes fluttered and her brows knitted together, the faintest ripple crossing her forehead. She beckoned to a small room fitted with a chair, a scale, gray cabinets, and educational posters on safe sex, condom use, and HIV.

Very romantic
.