The Pain Scale (2 page)

Driving up Pacific, I watched the neighborhoods grow more expensive and expansive with each passing block. It doesn’t take long after the street passes under the San Diego Freeway to reach those seven-figure price tags.

It turned out I didn’t even need to check the address. By the time I got there, there were already three cruisers, two unmarked cars, and the Crime Scene Detail’s van.

Something was off. There was way too much activity for such an early stage of the investigation.

I parked my Camry across the street in the shade of a hundred-year-old oak and got out. Half a dozen uniforms were hanging around the sidewalk in front of the house. I knew most of the names and faces, but nobody spoke. Just a few nodding heads. The house was a large colonial-style two story, white with very well-tended landscaping and a sprawling lawn at least fifteen yards deep, bisected by a stone pathway. As I was walking up, Jen came out of the front door and met me halfway.

“What’s up with the crowd?”

She didn’t answer. That surprised me.

I softened my tone and said, “What’s inside?”

Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw tightened. She’d taken her coat off and wore a sleeveless black silk blouse. There was an uncharacteristic tightness in her back and shoulders as she ran a hand through her spiky black hair.

“Don’t know yet. Just had a quick look at the bodies, then I saw you pull up. Thought I’d let you give them the once-over before we dig in.”

“You all right?”

She bit her lip and gave her head a single shake. “Just fine,” she said, her right fist clenching and unclenching as she spoke.

I didn’t believe her.

On the last major case I’d worked, I was attempting to apprehend a suspect when he attacked me with a knife. Not just any knife, but a Gurkha kukri, which has a large and heavy downwardcurving blade that’s designed to maximize chopping ability. If it hadn’t caught on the stainless-steel band of my watch, the doctors assured me, I would have lost my left hand. Instead, I’m told how lucky I am, and five surgeries later, I’d recovered 90 percent of my pre-injury function.

The pain, though, remained.

The double front door was ten feet high and opened onto a two-story foyer. A wide, marble-treaded staircase curved up the wall to the right. Cops and criminalists moved up and down it with room to spare. I followed the trail of uniforms.

At the upper landing, I found Lieutenant Ruiz, the LBPD Homicide Detail commander. He was the most solid boss I’d worked for in more than a decade and a half with the department. The Texas Rangers had trained him back in the eighties, and he had risen quickly through their ranks. But in those days, Latinos only advanced so high, and he’d had to migrate west to head his own squad. Rumor had it that the Rangers’ brass was concerned that they might not be able to distinguish between a Mexican lieutenant and the coyotes and narco mules they faced off against on a daily basis. “The tortilla ceiling,” some called it. Ruiz never said anything about it, though, and the whispered stories spread. But he had left Texas in the past, all but for a slight vocal inflection he was never quite able to shake. I heard it when he greeted me.

“Danny.”

I nodded back at him. “Hear it’s bad.”

“Yeah. Mother, two kids. Sara Gardener-Benton, Bailey and Jacob. Six and three.”

It was unusual for him to be on the scene at all, especially before the detectives. It meant that someone had bypassed the normal protocol and he’d already sounded the bugle for the cavalry. I wondered if the family mass killing on its own was enough to raise the case’s profile so high.

There were uniforms and criminalists at each end of the hall.

“Different rooms?”

“Mother in one”—he nodded toward one doorway—“and kids in the other.”

“Which is worse?”

“Depends how you think on it.”

I didn’t know what he meant. But I’d find out soon enough.

Whoever killed Sara Gardener-Benton had done a real job of it. Her body was spread eagle on a four-poster California king in a master suite so large it made the bed itself seem small. Each of her limbs was tied taut to a corner post with three-quarter-inch synthetic mountaineering rope in knots that looked like they must have been tied by professional sailors. She was naked, and it was obvious even from twelve feet away that she’d been tortured extensively. Her body was deeply bruised, and she had bled profusely from her genital area.

The ME from the coroner’s office was examining the body. He was a small man in his fifties. Bald and hard.

“Carter,” I said. “What do you know?”

“They beat the shit out of her, then raped her with a broken broomstick.”

“They?”

“Yeah. I’m fairly certain you’ll find it was a two-man job. Beat her first, then one held her down while the other tied. After that, fuckers probably took turns.”

I looked at the puddle of blood between her legs. The top surface had begun to coagulate. The comforter had slid or been pushed off to the far side of the bed. I squatted and lifted the dust ruffle with a gloved finger.

“Hasn’t bled through,” Carter said. “Probably won’t. This mattress is a top-of-the-line Simmons. Got this extra pillow-top layer of padding here on top. Synthetic fiber and memory foam. Not completely waterproof, but close.” He looked up at me. “You’re wondering how much she bled.”

“Yeah.”

“Too early to know for sure, but I’m betting it was the blood loss that got her. She probably passed out while they were still working on her.”

He didn’t bother mentioning the shock or the pain, either of which might have hastened her loss of consciousness. I wondered if she really was lucky enough to have passed out.

Bailey and Jacob were in another room down the hall. From the Barbie and Disney princess decor, I had to guess this one belonged to the girl.

Her body was face up on the floor, with her face twisted toward her left shoulder. A dark-red-black tangle marred the corn silk smoothness of the hair on the side of her head. She wore blue jeans with an elastic waistband and a pink polo shirt, the collar stained with blood. She’d been shot twice behind the ear with a small-caliber weapon, probably a .22. Another round had left a crimson stain in the center of her chest, just about where she would have held her hand while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Jacob had been hiding in the closet. His jeans were just like his sister’s, but he wore a
Toy Story
T-shirt on top. He had been shot three times in the face and once in the chest. It was hard to
see through the blood-soaked fabric, but it looked like the slug in the torso had gone right through Woody’s left eye.

I couldn’t guess what he had done to warrant the extra bullet. He’d held his hands up to protect himself, but they’d done nothing—from the angle of the wound, it appeared that one of the shots had pierced his left palm and continued on into his skull.

What does a three-year-old feel when looking into the barrel of a gun?

A second door led out of the bedroom and into a large bathroom. Bright colors, double sinks, separate shower and tub, a toilet behind its own door, and finally, another exit into the next bedroom. It was more luxury than any child could need, but at least they shared. Maybe there was a lesson or two in that. Not that it would do them any good now.

Through the second door, a
Thomas and Friends
theme dominated the room. The little tank engine was everywhere—curtains, sheets, and pillowcases, and especially in the wooden-track toy train set laid out on what I’m sure was a custom-made table. It was a full-size sheet of plywood framed by white pine one-by-sixes and mounted on short four-by-four legs that raised it about eighteen inches off the ground. A perfect height for a three-year-old engineer. I couldn’t help imagining Jacob grinning as Thomas chugged around the yards-long loops and curves of track through the village of plastic buildings.

I swallowed at the catch in my throat and tried to rub some of the pain out of my wrist. Neither action had much effect.

Downstairs, I found my way into what was either a family room or den. It always seems to me that one of the great challenges of
wealth must be coming up with names for all the rooms in your house. I supposed it didn’t really matter what the Bentons called the room. What I found most interesting was the display of family photos that covered most of one wall. Something struck me as odd.