‘This is a very quiet street,’ Hunter said. ‘Do you come here a lot?’
‘Sometimes. If I’m close enough,’ Keon replied, giving Hunter a sequence of quick nods. ‘That’s the reason I come here, you know what I’m sayin’? Because it’s quiet. You don’t have to fight to get a spot to crash. And sometimes you get some good food from the dumpsters, you dig? The food shops throw things away that you wouldn’t believe, man.’ Keon smiled a mouth full of decaying teeth. ‘You have to fight off the rats, but, hey, it’s free.’
Hunter gave him a sympathetic nod. ‘Can you run me through what happened when you got here?’
‘Oh man, I already told the cops everything.’
‘I understand, and I know it’s a pain in the ass. But it has to be done, Keon.’
The police officer returned with a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches and handed them to Keon. He quickly tapped one out, lit it up and took a drag so long the officer thought he would smoke the whole thing in one breath.
Hunter waited for him to exhale. ‘You can keep the pack.’
Keon wasted no time in placing it inside his right coat pocket.
‘So, can you tell me how you came across the body?’
Keon shrugged. ‘Sure.’
‘Do you know what time it was when you got here?’
Another shrug. Keon pulled back his left sleeve and showed Hunter his naked wrist. ‘My Rolex is in the shop.’
The corner of Hunter’s mouth curled up slightly. ‘Could you take a guess? Were all the shops already closed?’
‘Oh yeah, y’all. It was late, man. Long past midnight. I walked all the way from Panorama City, and it took me a while ’cos I’ve got a bad foot, you know what I mean?’ Keon pointed down to his left foot. He was wearing a dirty old leather Nike sneaker. There was a large hole on the left side where Hunter could see two of his toes. The shoe on the right foot was a black Converse All Stars.
‘Cops don’t never come down here, you know what I mean?’ Keon continued. ‘So you never get poked or kicked while you’re sleeping and told to move on. You can get a good few hours of sleep back here, and don’t nobody bother you, you dig?’
Hunter nodded. ‘So what happened?’
Keon took another drag, let the smoke out through his nose and nervously watched it dance in front of his face for a while. ‘I never saw him until I got real close. The alley was dark, you dig? I came up to the first dumpster and checked inside. It’s usually the one with the best food because the bakery dumps their scraps in there. I got me a nice piece of cornbread.’ As he said that, a thunderous rumble came from Keon’s stomach. He ignored it and took another drag of his cigarette. ‘But before I could have a bite of any of it, I saw this pair of legs sticking out from behind one of the dumpsters. I thought it was just another brother crashing out, you know what I mean? There’s enough space here for more than one, you dig?’
Hunter was attentively observing Keon’s movements and expressions. His hands had begun shaking again once he started telling his story. The croak in his voice had worsened a touch. His eyes had trouble focusing anywhere for too long – a symptom of drug dependency – but the jitter in them was genuine fear.
‘I thought maybe it was Tobby or Tyrek,’ Keon continued. ‘They crash here every once in a while too. But when I got close—’ Keon scratched his beard as if it were burning his face. ‘Holy shit, man, what happened to him?’ His scared eyes met Hunter’s. ‘He’s got no face. He’s got no skin.’ He finished his cigarette in one massive drag and stubbed it out under his shoe. ‘I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my life, y’all. I’ve seen a few dead bodies too, but that—’ his head jerked toward the dumpsters ‘—that’s the devil’s work, man.’
‘Was he covered?’ Hunter asked. ‘By newspapers, or a piece of cloth, or something?’
‘Nah, y’all. He was just lying there like a big piece of gooey meat, you know what I’m sayin’? Scared the shit out of me, man. Even the rats were half scared of it.’
‘Did you see anybody else around?’ Hunter asked.
‘Hell no. The alley was empty.’
‘Any cars parked close by, maybe around the entrance to the alleyway?’
Keon paused, his brow furrowed a little and he ran his tongue over his cracked bottom lip.
‘Was there a car around?’
‘Well, when I came around the corner, a truck was backing up from the alley.’
‘A truck?’
‘Yep, more like a pickup truck, you know the type? But it wasn’t open-back. It had a hardtop over the back box.’
‘Did you notice what type of truck it was?’
‘Nah, man. I wasn’t that close. As I said, I had just turned the corner when I saw the truck backing up and taking off.’
‘How about color?’
Keon thought back for a second. ‘It was a dark truck. Maybe black or blue. Hard to say from a distance. The lighting around here ain’t that good, you know what I’m sayin’? But there was a big dent on the back fender. I remember that.’
‘A dent? Are you sure?’
‘Um-huh. I saw it as the truck backed up from the alley, on the driver’s side.’
‘How big a dent?’
‘Big enough for me to see it from that far.’
Hunter took some notes. ‘Did you get to see the driver at all?’
‘Nah, y’all. Dark windows.’
‘Could you tell if the truck was old or new?’
Keon shook his head. ‘I can’t really say, but I don’t think it was an old truck.’
Hunter nodded. ‘OK, let’s move on. So what did you do when you saw the body on the ground? Did you touch it at all?’
‘Touch it?’ Keon’s eyes went wide. ‘Are you high, man? Can I have some? Keon ain’t no fool, y’all. I didn’t know what was wrong with the stiff. It could be a sickness or somin’. Some weird shit like “AIDS of the skin” or some new disease created by the government, you know what I mean? Like an experiment or somin’. Either that or the devil really is walking the streets, skinning motherfuckers, erasing their faces and dumping them in back alleys.’ Keon reached for another cigarette. ‘No, man, I didn’t touch no dead body. I just dropped everything and got the fuck out of here, grabbed a payphone out in the streets and dialed 911.’
‘You dialed 911 as soon as you saw the body?’
‘That’s right, y’all.’
Keon’s stomach roared again. He lit up his cigarette, took another long drag and paused, looking a little hesitant. Hunter noticed it.
‘Something else, Keon?’
‘Well, I thought that maybe . . . you know . . . there was some sort of reward, or somin’. I did good, didn’t I? Calling y’all down here? Remembering the truck and all.’
And that explained how come Keon was cooperating so freely.
‘Yes, Keon, you did good, but there’s no reward. I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, c’mon, man. Nothin’?’
Hunter gave him a slight headshake.
‘Shiiit, man. That ain’t fair. Couldn’t you help a brother out with somin’? I could do with a little help, you know what I’m sayin’?’
Another loud, longer rumbling of his stomach.
‘When was the last time you had a proper meal, Keon?’
‘You mean a full meal?’
Hunter nodded.
Keon chewed his lips for a moment. ‘Not for some time, man.’
‘OK, look. I’m not going to give you any money, but if you’re hungry—’ Hunter nodded at Keon’s stomach ‘—and I can hear you are, breakfast is on me. How about that?’
Keon scratched both sides of his beard while chewing his lips again. ‘C’mon, y’all. Just twenty bucks, man. Twenty bucks is nothing for y’all.’
‘No money, Keon, sorry.’
‘Ten, then. You can spare a brother ten bucks, can’t you?’
‘Breakfast, Keon. That’s the best I can do.’
Keon looked down at his hands, considering. ‘Can I have hot pancakes?’
Hunter smiled. ‘Yes, you can have hot pancakes.’
Keon nodded. ‘Yeah, breakfast sounds good, y’all.’
Thirteen
Despite having the body, Hunter and Garcia were no closer to finding the victim’s identity. His entire skin had dissolved in the alkaline solution, and that meant no fingerprints, no identifying tattoos or birthmarks, if there were any, and absolutely no facial features. DNA analyses would take a few days, but even then they would only have a match if the victim’s DNA had been archived into CODIS, the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, and for that to have happened the victim would’ve had to have been previously convicted of a felony offense such as sexual assault or homicide – a very long shot. They were also still waiting for any news from the Missing Persons Unit.
By early afternoon Mike Brindle and his forensics team had collected a small bag of hairs, fibers and debris that could prove to be of interest, but in an alleyway with four large dumpsters, all of them packed full with several days’ worth of trash from a number of different establishments, no one was holding their breath for a breakthrough.
Hunter told Brindle about the pickup truck Keon Lewis had seen backing up from the alleyway. Brindle said that they had already come across two sets of tire prints. The first, and more prominent of the two, came from what looked like large, heavy-duty tires. The best impressions were just by the first dumpster. Brindle’s opinion was that the prints were left by one or more of the city’s garbage trucks on collection day. Hunter figured he was right, but the lab would have to confirm that.
Brindle’s team had gotten lucky about halfway down the alleyway, where they found a second, very faint, partial tire mark, courtesy of a small pothole with just enough dirty water to get a section of the tire wet. The partial print didn’t look to have come from a large and heavy vehicle such as a garbage truck. The problem was that by the time they found it, most of the impression had evaporated under the Los Angeles morning sun, but with the help of a special powder and a large sheet of black gelatin lifter, they were able to obtain traces of it. They hoped it would be good enough for the lab to get them something.
Hunter checked with Central Operations. Keon’s 911 call came in just before one in the morning. Hunter allowed two hours either side of that mark and contacted the Valley Bureau’s Traffic Division, asking them for whatever footage they might have from any road cameras surrounding the area from 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. They were still waiting on it.
‘OK,’ Garcia said, hitting the ‘print’ button on his computer. Hunter was at his desk, studying the photographs from the alleyway. He put them down and looked across his desk at his partner.
‘Sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda, can be bought in four main formats,’ Garcia explained. ‘Pallets, pearls, flakes or liquid. Because one of its main uses is as a cleaning agent, it can be easily found and purchased over the counter and Internet in a range of grades and pack sizes. Many vendors will sell it to pretty much anyone, no ID check necessary.’ Garcia got up and walked over to the printer in the corner of the room. ‘Actually, you can even find bottles of caustic soda in supermarkets. It’s also present in many cleaning products, including drain unblockers and floor and oven cleaners.’ He handed the printout to Hunter. ‘This thing is way too easy to obtain. This is a dead path.’
As Hunter took the sheet, the phone on his desk rang.
‘Detective Hunter, Homicide Special,’ he answered it and listened for a few seconds. ‘On our way.’ He put the phone down and nodded at Garcia. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Where?’
‘The morgue. Doctor Hove is done with the autopsy.’
Fourteen
The drive to the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner in North Mission Road took them less than twenty minutes. Hunter and Garcia made their way up the lavish steps that led to the main entrance of the architecturally impressive building and approached the reception counter. The attendant, a large, kind-faced black woman of about fifty, gave them the same sympathetic smile she reserved for everyone who came through the doors of the old hospital turned morgue.
‘Good afternoon, Detectives,’ she said in a voice that seemed to have been trained in a library.
‘How are you doing, Sandra?’ Hunter smiled back.
‘I’m well, thank you.’ The question wasn’t returned. Sandra had learned a long time ago never to ask anyone entering a morgue how
they
were doing. ‘Doctor Hove is waiting for you in Autopsy Theater One.’ With a subtle head gesture she indicated the swinging double doors to the right of the reception.
Hunter and Garcia pushed through them and carried on down the long, squeaky-clean white corridor. At the end of it they turned left into a shorter hallway, where an orderly wheeling a body on a gurney covered by a white sheet was coming their way. One of the two fluorescent ceiling lights was malfunctioning, flickering on and off at odd intervals. The scene reminded Hunter of some B-rated horror movie.
Hunter pinched his nose as if he was about to sneeze. The smell of the place got to him every time. It was like a hospital’s, but with a different punch to it. Something that seemed to claw at the back of his throat and slowly burn the inside of his nostrils like acid. But today the overpowering smell of disinfectant and cleaning products was churning his stomach even more. It was like he could smell the sodium hydroxide in them. Garcia seemed to have picked that up too, judging by the look on his face.
Another left turn and they were at the door to Autopsy Theater One.
Hunter pressed the intercom button on the wall and heard static crackle from the tiny speaker. ‘Doctor Hove?’ he called.
The heavy door buzzed and unlocked with a hiss like a pressure seal. Hunter pushed it open and he and Garcia stepped inside the large and winter-cold room. Its walls were tiled in brilliant white. Its floor was done in shiny vinyl. Three stainless-steel autopsy tables sprang out of a long counter with oversized sinks that ran along the east wall. On the ceiling, above each table, was a circular island of surgical lights. Metal crypts took up two walls and looked like large filing cabinets with bulky handles. The Chief Medical Examiner for the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner was standing at the far end of the room.
Doctor Carolyn Hove was tall and slim with penetrating green eyes and long chestnut hair that she usually kept in a ponytail, but today it was rolled up into a simple bun. Her surgical mask hung loosely around her neck, revealing full lips with just a touch of pink lipstick, prominent cheekbones and a petite, delicate nose. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of her white lab coverall.