The Pain Scale (17 page)

My phone rang.

“Bingo,” Pat said.

We watched Taras Shevchuk look over his shoulder, close the door of his car, and cross the parking lot to the ATM.

“I got him, too. Let him make the transaction so we get it recorded, then grab him,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

Most rifle bullets travel at a velocity greater than the speed of sound. Because of this, despite what countless movies and television shows would have you believe, even with a sound suppressor, they still make a considerable amount of noise because the projectile actually creates a small sonic boom that, while it doesn’t sound like what most people think a gunshot sounds like, it is still very distinctive and very loud.

We were both looking at Shevchuk when we heard the sharp shock of the ballistic crack, and half of his head exploded into a cloud of pink mist.

“Fuck!” Jen yelled.

On the other side of PCH, a Chevy SUV with tinted windows that was parked tail in next to an optometrist’s office hit the accelerator too hard and screeched its tires.

“Across the street! White Tahoe!”

Jen and I both jumped back into her 4Runner. We were moving before I even slammed my door.

The SUV had pulled into traffic heading south. There was a raised, grass-covered median dividing the highway. We either had to try to drive over it or into oncoming traffic.

“What are—”

Before I could even get the words out Jen had hit the brakes and the front end of the Toyota hit the curb and bounced up onto the divider. The truck shuddered and screamed, but it kept moving, and as soon as all four tires had bounced down onto the southbound roadway, Jen gunned the engine.

A few blocks ahead, I could see the Tahoe weaving in and out of traffic. The driver would have to decide soon whether to turn onto a side street or onto Seal Beach Boulevard, the last chance before an unbroken mile-long stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway.

I was hoping he’d go straight.

The late-afternoon traffic wasn’t heavy, but there was enough of it to slow us down. I was sure Pat would have already requested assistance, but just in case, I put in a 911 officers-in-pursuit call.

He turned left on Seal Beach Boulevard. That would take him north to the San Diego Freeway.

“Did you see? He’s northbound on—”

“I got him,” Jen said. She sounded almost as calm as she had when we were sitting in the parking lot.

I heard sirens in the distance, but I couldn’t tell what direction they were coming from.

Jen hit the left turn hard, and I felt my weight press into the passenger door. As soon as we were pointed north, I looked for the Tahoe. The Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station was on our right, and there was no place to turn on that side of the street. He passed the first left and took another hard turn onto Bolsa, still several hundred yards in front of us.

As we passed an elementary school on our right, I saw the first flashing police lights coming toward us about half a mile ahead on the other side of the road.

We followed the Chevy onto Bolsa, and as soon as we made it around the corner, I realized the Tahoe was out of sight. There were three residential streets within view of the intersection on the right. He could have taken any one of them.

“Go for the second,” I said. “Split the difference.”

The street we turned on was called Sea Breeze. It was typical of Seal Beach—upper middle class and quiet. We slowed down and resigned ourselves to the fact that we had likely lost the vehicle we were pursuing.

I heard sirens behind us, but when I turned to look, I didn’t see any lights.

“Right or left?” Jen asked as we approached the end of the block.

As she stopped, I leaned forward and looked both directions. “Right,” I said. “Looks like more cross streets.”

There was no sign of him.

Jen drove around the neighborhood. As we circled around and around, our expectation that we would come up dry grew with each corner.

Then we saw it.

On a short cul-de-sac called Coral Place, the white Tahoe was angled toward the left-side curb, its rear end extending out into the street, the passenger door wide open.

We parked about ten yards away. Jen turned on the 4Runner’s hazard lights, and we drew our Glocks as we got out.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“Got you,” Jen answered.

I couldn’t see much through the tinted back windows of the SUV. There were two shapes where the driver and passenger’s heads would be, but they were motionless, so I assumed they were the headrests.

As I closed in on the vehicle, sighting down the slide of my pistol, I had the feeling we were too late. That the shooter was gone and we’d missed our opportunity.

Ten feet behind the Tahoe, I moved to my left to check out the driver’s side. I didn’t see any movement, but the side-view mirror seemed to have an odd dark-red tint to it.

I circled wide around the passenger side and looked in the open door. When I did, I understood the odd shading on the mirror.

The driver was slumped dead over the steering wheel. The windshield and driver’s side were sprayed with blood and brain matter from the bullet wound in the back of his head.

The adrenaline rush was coming on hard, so I forced myself to stand still and breathe deeply. My pulse began to slow, and I moved closer to the vehicle and looked behind the front seats to be sure the shooter wasn’t waiting for us.

As soon as I was convinced that nothing was moving, I opened the rear door and looked inside.

Except for the suppressed M4 carbine abandoned on the backseat and the body of the driver, the big Chevy was empty.

I looked at Jen, shook my head, and saw the disappointment in her eyes.

Then the Seal Beach cruiser finally found us and screeched to a stop at the entrance to the dead end.

Jen and I held our hands high and wide.

The uniform was riding alone and rose out of the car with an uncertain look on his face and his hand on his weapon.

“I’m Detective Danny Beckett, Long Beach Police. This is Detective Jennifer Tanaka.” We held our hands up as he said something we couldn’t understand into the radio mic clipped to his shoulder.

A second or two later, we heard a garbled reply, and he seemed to relax. “Okay,” he said. “Just sit tight. Backup’s on the way.” But he didn’t move his right hand until two more squad cars rolled up behind him and we heard the guttural roar of a helicopter circling overhead.

Jen and I were still in the dead end with the shooter’s Tahoe an hour later when Ruiz arrived. We’d been in an odd kind of limbo, the locals recognizing and verifying our police status but still a little hesitant to cede any control over a crime scene in their territory. Once our lieutenant talked to their lieutenant, though, they backed down. And, honestly, they seemed relieved. Two murders was about ten years’ worth of homicide for them.

“The SUV’s stolen,” Ruiz said. “Owner’s on vacation in Hawaii. Didn’t know anything about it until we called him.”

“This is heavy-duty shit.” I gestured toward the open passenger door of the Chevy. “Professional. Weapon’s a suppressed M4. The shooter even capped the driver. What do we do with this?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“Any sign of the suspect?” Jen asked.

“Nope. Helicopters didn’t see anything. And no luck with the canine unit.”

It didn’t seem like there was anything left for us to do there, so I said, “They find anything back at the bank?”

“Why don’t you head back there and see.”

Jen and I got in her 4Runner and retraced our route. She hadn’t spoken in a while. Every time she turned the steering wheel, the front end squealed as if it were in pain.

In the Pavilions shopping center, the whole southeast corner of the parking lot was cordoned off by dozens of LBPD and Seal Beach uniforms and a seemingly infinite supply of bright-yellow crime scene tape. There were already two news vans at the scene. The closest empty parking space was a block north of PCH on Main Street. With our badges in our hands, we got out and went looking for Patrick.

Half a dozen cops stopped us for ID before we got anywhere near the Wells Fargo. The closer we got to the center of the mass of people, the more familiar faces we saw.

We ducked under the tape and found Patrick with a veteran patrol sergeant. They were leaning toward each other and raising their voices to be heard above the clamor of the crowd.

He turned to us and I realized the color of his face was a shade or two lighter than usual. I wondered whether it had been witnessing Shevchuk’s murder or having to coordinate such a massive crime scene that was the cause. Probably a combination of the two.

“How you doing?” I asked.

He gave a confident nod, and I realized his paleness was the only sign of disquiet that was discernable.

“Fine. We got something.”

He led us over to the Dodge that Shevchuk had driven into the lot and spoke to a crime-scene technician who was leaning into the rear door of the car. “Show them what you just showed me.”

The technician pulled a paper evidence bag out of the box near his feet and held it open. He shone his light inside.

A plastic card in a paper slipcover was at the bottom.

“Is that a hotel key?” Jen asked.

“Motel,” the tech said.

“The Seven Seventy-Seven Motor Lodge,” Patrick added.

I felt a twinge of anticipation turning over in my gut. “How soon can you clear the scene?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t wait for me. Go.”

Just over a mile south from the place where Taras Shevchuk made his last withdrawal is a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs through the picturesque little town of Sunset Beach. It’s
full of big houses and seafood places and surf shops and cheap motels, and surrounded by a number of channels where people moor their boats right next to their waterfront homes. Because of the water, PCH is the only way in or out, and it has left the community feeling like a little seaside getaway somewhere up the coast far away from the border between Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Appearances can be deceiving, though, and the small population there is an odd mixture of the wealthiest OC denizens and VW-van-driving-beach-bum culture of all of coastal Southern California. In Sunset Beach, it’s not unusual to have a view of a million-dollar yacht moored on the private dock of a multimillion-dollar home from the window of your shithole motel.

And that’s exactly what the 777 Motor Lodge was.

Years ago, I attempted to stay there one night when I had too much to drink while watching the ultra-kitsch hula show at Sam’s Seafood, a retro tiki bar and restaurant, next door. Even though I was completely plastered, when I turned on the bathroom light and saw the cockroaches scurrying out of the sink, I wobbled back outside and called a cab.

As Jen drove south across the bridge over Anaheim Bay, I looked back at the LBPD squad car following us. “Did you see who’s backing us up?”

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“Remember Greg Adams?”

She shook her head, but I suspected she knew what I was talking about.

“From the Beth Williams case.”

A year ago, Adams, a rookie, had been responding to his first homicide. He’d made the mistake of stepping in the victim’s blood and leaving his own footprints at the scene. I’d insisted on bagging one of his shoes as evidence in the case. The watch commander made him finish out his shift doing paperwork at the station with only one shoe. To teach him a lesson. Some of the vets
started calling him “Barefoot,” which, in the manner of cop colloquialisms the world over, became streamlined and simplified.