MOSAICS: A Thriller (34 page)

“
Two years later, he struck again: this time he chose an elderly woman, Katya Krikorian. Katya’s son hired me to find her when she went missing last May. She was a friend of Lyanne’s, her only friend, in fact, according to Lyanne’s nurse.” I turned over to Satish. “The neighbor yesterday told us the nurse had quit, remember that?”

He nodded, wearily. “I spoke to her over the phone. Apparently Lyanne was no
palsy-walsy. The nurse couldn’t take it no more and quit last week. She’d left a note for Medina but never heard back from him.”

I resumed my story. “When I interviewed the nurse the first time
, I asked her if she had any idea why Katya would leave her car one mile away from Lyanne’s house. The nurse didn’t know but told me that she’d overheard the two talk about hiking places in the area. Katya liked to hike and Lyanne, for some awkward reason, had suggested the trail to the water cistern. The nurse also mentioned that Katya had on numerous occasions complained about the state Lyanne was in and recommended calling social services—at the time I hadn’t made much of the comment, but it’s easy to see now how that would’ve pissed Medina. He must’ve been happy with a nurse who minded her own business and only had limited time in the house.”

Gomez rippled his wide forehead. “Why would Lyanne recommend hiking up to the cistern? Regrets?”

“Her days were numbered and Katya was her only friend. Maybe it was her attempt to a confession. She probably had no idea her son was a regular visitor at the cistern. Medina, on the other hand, was worried Katya would’ve called social services. Maybe she even threatened to do so that at some point.”

I took a breather and drained the water in my cup. Nobody talked. A chair squeaked, a loud thud followed. The tall FID dick was back on four legs, staring at me.

“You satisfied?” I said.

He twitched his jaw. “For now,” he replied.

His partner tapped his notebook. “We’ll write a report on the incident and call you when it’s ready for you to review. We need to include the autopsy reports, the gun residue analysis, and all the likes. You know the drill.”

Hell I do
.

They got to their feet and scrambled to the door
. Electric Blue Shirt saluted me before heading out. “Til the next one, cowboy,” he said with the usual smirk.

“Asshole,” I mumbled, and met Gomez’s flaring glare, eyes bulging underneath two rolls of scrunched forehead and brows. He was still rolling the pen between his fingers. Had it been an axe maybe he’d already thrown it at me.

“I’m not satisfied, Track.”

“I figured.”

Gomez steered his bulging orbs to Satish. “How did you know where to find him?”

Satish straightened up. “Forensic scientist Diane Kyle called me.”

“I’d left the paper with her,” I said.

Sat nodded. “That’s what she said. She also said that together you figured out about the faked data. And that you left in a hurr
y and she could no longer get ahold of you. She worried you’d do something stupid.”

Gomez’s frown relaxed for a fraction of a second. “What do you know? He
did
do something stupid.”

We fell silent, the word “stupid” bobbing in the air between us like a buoyant. The pen rolled, the fan swooshed, the freeway droned. And then, all of a sudden, Gomez shot to his feet, walked to the door and opened it. “Out,” he said. “I need to get some sleep. Report to me in the morning.”

We shuffled out of his office and across the deserted squad room. It looked even more squalid in the middle of the night, with the scratched Formica desktops and the polyester ceiling panels. In the elevator lobby Satish jingled his car keys and rocked on his heels.

“Something’s missing from your account,” he said.

I frowned.

“Who killed Charlie Callahan and Courtney Henkins?”

The elevator doors rattled and opened. I stared into the small space that smelled of lubricant oil, old metal and dirty secrets. I shook my head and stepped inside. “I’m afraid we’ll never find out, Sat. Or maybe we will. In twenty years, when the next Stephanie Lazarus will be unveiled without too many heads having to roll off.”

*  *  *

The first sunrays were blinking through the treetops when I finally drove home. Chevy Chase was quiet, save the hissing of the garden sprinklers and the screeching of the jays. The morning air was still cool. I got out of my truck and inhaled the scent of oak bark, eucalyptus, and sage. I was exhausted, drained, and happy to be alive. I almost fucked up my job but that seemed no longer relevant.

Will was happy to see me alive, too. The King went all the way of hopping down his windowsill to come meet me at the door. Life was back to normal.

I sang in the shower and hummed as I shaved. I dropped on the bed naked and fell asleep instantly.

A noise awakened me—the stupid sparrow that’d been trying to get through my window since the start of the summer. He’d littered the windowsill with his
droppings and dented the screen. One of these days I was going to shoot him, but regretted having to pay for a new windowpane. I groaned, rolled over and something poked me in the stomach. I sprang my eyes open. It was noon, and I’d slept six hours straight over my own pile of dirty clothes. I sat up and picked up my pants. The holsters were empty, of course—the FIDs had sequestered both my guns pending the OIS investigation. I turned the pockets inside out. A long, white and cold, marble shard fell on the bed. I smiled. Had to bring a piece of Venus home—my latest trophy. I lifted it and caressed it. I tried to remember which part it belonged to but couldn’t quite place it.

An image flashed before me. A lizard’s red eye, ogling from a man’s shoulder.

Vargas
.

I’d completely forgotten about Ricky Vargas.

I jumped out of bed, pulled on a pair of briefs and picked up the phone. I was about to hang up when I finally heard a click. I heard nothing else so I shouted into the mouthpiece, “Hello? Detective Presius here.”

“I hear you, Detective,” Vicente
Vargas replied. “But you’re too late to save my Ricky.”

*  *  *

Friday, July 24

The sound of bells tolling is like a sad memory you can’t manage to forget.

People spilled out of the white
church in black dresses and suits. They filed down the stairs, the men looking grave, and the women crying. The air was hot and humid for California weather, the faces red and sweaty. They were all heavily scented, a blend of aftershaves and fragrances as loud and gaudy as a flock of parrots.

Maria Espinoza Vargas leaned on the arm of a young girl and almost collapsed. Two men held her from behind. The crowd got thicker aro
und her. Maria shook her head and waved them away. She had strong bones in her face, and deep eyes that had seen everything and weren’t as terrified of death as they were of human beings. Her heavily made up face had creased and smeared and melted in black tears.

The pallbearers emerged from the depths of the church and brought the coffin outside.

Maria shrieked, “Mi hijo!”

The coffin bobbed down the stairs. Parked in front of the church, the hearse’s engine whirred. The bell tolled, and the white wreaths withered under the sun. A layer of haze lingered in the air like an incoming migraine.

The pallbearers pushed the coffin inside the hearse, placed a wreath of white carnations at its foot, and closed the vehicle’s door. A man waved and the hearse started moving. Behind it, Maria walked and shrieked. Two men walked beside her, holding her arms.

The
rest of the crowd followed.

Vicente
Vargas limped his way down the stairs, one eye looking at me, and the other following the hearse. He stood with the helpless dignity of a disarmed man in front of the enemy. I wasn’t the enemy, but I was too late to prove it.

“That’s my sister
-in-law, Ricky’s mom,” he said. “She’s a widow. My brother died when the kids were five and three.”

“A shooting?”

He nodded, his head heavy on wide shoulders. His lazy eye looked lazier than I remembered. I wasn’t sure which eye to stare at, so I watched the procession instead.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I would’ve said more, but I didn’t know what.

He looked down at his hands, wide and cracked and still caked with cement and hard labor. The cuffs of his blazer were worn out and a button was missing from the front. It smelled of weddings, baptisms, quinceaneras and funerals—too many funerals.

“
No paran
,” Vicente said quietly. “
No van a parar hasta que se maten todos. Dicen que fue un nene de trece años
.” He shook his head heavily again. “
Trece años
,” he repeated, shuffling away.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled again, but he was no longer listening.

I don’t speak Spanish, and he never asked me if I did. Some things don’t need translation.

A thirteen-year-old had shot and killed Ricky Vargas in a drive-by. In South Central, where life is survival, your first shooting marks your entrance to adulthood, and your first step
toward the tomb.

In South Central, young lives were
expendable, debts were paid through retaliation, and gangs haunted the streets, looking for a deal, a rock, a buck. Looking for trouble. Somewhere in South Central, somebody tonight was celebrating and Maria was crying. Somewhere in South Central, good and evil blurred, hunters and prey mingled, and today’s killer became tomorrow’s victim.

That’s the soul of L.A., the city of angels and devils, of richness and poverty, of fires and mudslides. The city of opposites.

I walked back to my truck feeling the heaviness of defeat against a faceless enemy. I longed for revenge and yet I had nobody to hate but myself.

Ricky Vargas. Courtney Henkins. Charlie Callahan.

The bell stopped tolling. I started the engine and let it idle. My eyes strayed to the glove compartment. I popped it open and slid out Callahan’s photo. After they’d ramped my house and I’d found the Byzantine’s tiles in my backyard, I’d hidden the photo in my truck. I still didn’t know what it meant, but I was fairly sure Charlie’s killer knew. 

I stared at the photograph.

Talk to me
.

It didn’t. Charlie Callahan smiled his happy, innocent smile. The beige couch, the meaningless poster behind him, the side table with the lamp, the ashtray, the reading glasses.

The reading glasses
.

Red, with a famous logo on the temple. I knew I’d seen them before. And the ashtray. I brought the photo to my nose and inhaled. It wasn’t just passive smoke. It was
expensive
passive smoke.

M
y thoughts rewound back. How did it all start? Callahan’s dead body, a suspect, a conviction. The
wrong
conviction, yet after the incarceration of Malcolm Olsen, the case was closed.

Malcolm Olsen.

You hate it here, Detective, don’t you? You hate it just like me
, he’d said.

And then he’d given me a clue.
Nail polish
.

Something clicked at the back of my head.

Menthol. Kool cigarettes. Gas exhaust. Nail polish smell.

Reading glasses with a famous logo on the frame.

I placed the photo back in the glove compartment, backed out of the lot, and left the cemetery. Blood was pulsing to my head. I wanted revenge. I’d failed Ricky Vargas and I wanted revenge. And I knew exactly where to find it.

THIRTY-FIVE

____________

Sunday, August 2

Runyon Canyon Park sprawls at the top of the Hollywood hills, above the growling belly of the city. From the south entrance
, the main trail snakes up to Inspiration Point where people sit and watch the sun rise behind the San Gabriel Mountains. The sky turns pink and the clouds tumble over the basin like lost shreds of happiness. Noises are muffled and the air is crisp and smells of eucalyptus and sage and yucca. The steep incline is mottled with scrub oaks, toyon, red shanks, and sugar bush.

Not that Detect
ive John Sakovich cares. He likes to come up here before anyone else does, so he can jog without worrying about his boxer getting into fights with other dogs. On his way home, he buys flowers for his wife. He showers and heads to work, stopping at Dunkin Donuts for his free coffee first. Such is the life of Detective John Sakovich. A date, from time to time, to be kept strictly secret among his own circles. Circles of people like him, people who understand.

Like Captain Zoltek. He understands. Of course he
does. Because Captain Zoltek has his own little problems that need to be fixed. Problems like Charlie Callahan. A mistake, rather. And Sakovich can take care of such mistakes. Tit for tat, one hand washes the other. A little harder when Henkins had to go too. The timing was perfect, though. Should things turn murky, the stupid RHD dick will go down. He’ll make sure of it. No more mistakes.

The stupid RHD dick who’s watching him now.  

Only, he doesn’t know.

I donned latex gloves and followed.
One last star twinkled in the sky. A pale moon close to the rim of the mountains smiled. Detective John Sakovich hiked up the dirt road, his headlight headband bobbing in the last remnants of darkness. His boxer scuttled ahead, sniffed, peed, left his trace of odors for me and Will to follow. Covertly, unseen.

By the time Sakovich reached the top of the ridge the first light of dawn
had started rimming the mountains. Scraped by palm treetops, the Hollywood hills blinked. The freeways hummed in the distance. Just out of LAX, an airplane scratched the sky.

The boxer barked.

Will leaped ahead and off the trail. I followed Sakovich’s acrid sweat, impregnated of the one too many beers from last night, his menthol aftershave, his pack of Kools.

Nail polish.

There was a car that night. I saw it when I walked the dog. An Oldsmobile Alero, black, one of the older models. A guy was inside, smoking. When I walked back he was still there. Rolled up his window and left. And I smelled nail polish after the car
.

Only somebody with a refined sense of smell would notice. I
’d stopped at a Seven Eleven the night before, purchased a pack of Kools, lit one cigarette, left it burning on the pavement, by the car exhaust. The engine ran, the cigarette burnt. Combined with the gas exhaust, the menthol contained in the Kool cigarette, as it burnt, took on an acrid, synthetic tang.

Nail polish
.

The boxer kept trudging behind.

“Come on, Max. Move on, buddy,” Sakovich called.

Some persistent scent nagged Max’s nostrils. Sakovich stopped
to wait. The boxer didn’t budge, his nose pointed to a bush off the trail. He sniffed, barked, then delved down the incline and disappeared in the brush.

“Fuck. Max!” Sakovich jogged back to the edge of the trail and looked down, the beam from his headlight lost in the vegetation. The incline was steep, an intricate mess of wild bushes, scrub oaks, and laurels.

“Max! Come back!”

Somewhere down the hill Max growled.

Sakovich bristled. “Coyotes!” he muttered, unholstering his revolver. “Fucking coyotes!” He left the trail and sauntered down the incline, gingerly at first, his path blocked by branches and twigs. Max yelped, Sakovich broke into a run, his large body wobbling over a rugged terrain of rocks and twisted roots.

It wasn’t coyotes. It was Will, growling and gnarling, he and Max going in circles, flashing their teeth.
I snapped on latex gloves. Sakovich raised his gun and aimed.

I pounced
on him from behind, slammed him on the ground and crunched my boot over his hand. “Let go of the gun! Now!”

He squealed in pain. The minute he let go of the gun I picked it up and dug the barrel in the middle of his forehead right as he was trying to get up. He froze. 

“Presius… What the hell you think you’re doin’?”

“Avenging a fellow cop, you bastard! Get down!”

I made him lie down, face on the ground.

Eat dirt, piece of scum
.

The dogs barked. I flew one round on the ground to scare them away, then got on Sakovich’s back, knees planted on his ass and legs, and sunk the gun barrel in his neck.

The dogs scrammed.

“You’ll pay for this, Presius,” Sakovich spat.

“Did you look up my package, Sakovich?” I hissed.

“I—what?”

I twisted his right arm, pressed the gun harder. “My package!”

Dry leaves stuck to his mouth as he spoke. “I’m gonna ruin you, I swear. I’m gonna have you destroyed. Your career—”

“Did you look up my package?”

“Yes! I did! Fucking mental you are!”

“So then you know what I did to Danny Mendoza.”

He didn’t reply this time. His muscles tensed. I
’d killed Mendoza when I was sixteen, carved the eyeballs out of his skull with a penknife.

I bent over and whispered in Sakovich’s ear
: “I’m gonna do the same thing to your pretty little dick.”

He froze. I smelled a little bladder release. “You won’t get away with it, Presius.”

“You’re a cop killer, Sakovich. You deserve to die.”

Once a killer, always a killer.

The voice echoed in my head and gave me a chill. For a moment, the gun in my hand faltered. Sakovich sensed it and tried to buck. I kept him down and sunk the barrel deeper into his neck.  

His voice cracked. “What—what the hell do you want, Presius?”

I stared at the gun in my hand. “Smart ass,” I said. “You didn’t bring the one you used to whack Henkins. Course not. Did you dump it in the riverbed? Or better even—down at the harbor?”

“What—I didn’t—argh!”

“You bastard. You killed a fellow cop, fucking traitor.” I pressed the barrel so hard the vein in his neck almost popped. “I wanna hear the whole story. Nice and slow, we got time. Sun’s not even out yet. Start from Callahan and don’t stop until I hear where you dumped the gun you used to whack Henkins.”

He spat, almost choked on his words.

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t hear you. I believe we were talking about Callahan. Your Captain, Zoltek, found him on Craigslist. Nice find. Or were you the pimp? Whose screen name is mr_kam, yours or Zoltek’s?”

KAM is the radio code for “end of transmissions.” Only a fellow LAPD would’ve come up with that one.

Sakovich grunted. “That’s bullsh—ARGH!”

I twisted his arm harder. “You saying?”

“H-how did you—”

“I did my homework, Sak. You see, there’s a certain photo of Callahan in my possession, a photo taken at your boss’s house. Nice red couch with the Niagara Falls hanging on the wall behind?”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fine.
I’ll give you a few hints, then. I’m gonna guess mr_kam was Zoltek’s screen name on Craigslist. He hooked up with Callahan, had fun while it lasted, then Callahan got laid off and things went a little sour. Callahan needed money and decided to ask for some financial help from Zoltek. When Zoltek refused, the request turned into blackmailing. Zoltek complied for a while—pouring about five hundred bucks into Callahan’s pockets every other week—until he got tired and hired you to get rid of the problem. Am I doing well so far?”

He squirmed. I held him down, gun pressed nice and hard to his jugular vein.

The bastard kept his mouth zipped, so I went on talking. “Getting rid of Callahan turned out to be fairly easy,” I said. “You made sure Callahan’s cellphone disappeared and planted a little meth in his pockets just to muddle up the waters. Even got the perfect suspect to nail—the homophobic neighbor Malcolm Olsen. You forgot the picture, though.”

“W-what picture?”

“The picture that connects Callahan to Zoltek. Let’s assume Zoltek’s wasn’t as stupid as to bring Callahan to his house. He still made a mistake. He left his glasses on the coffee table next to Callahan. Extravagant glasses, the expensive kind. The kind I couldn’t help but notice when I offered my condolences to Zoltek the day you guys interrogated me at Pacific Station. I’m sure the Captain appreciated the gesture, given he was the one who ordered you to shut Henkins up.”

“Oh, come on. All this based on some glasses that anyone could—”

“I blew up the photo, Sakovic, and got a serial number on the frames. Did you know glass frames had serial numbers? Nice feature. Had to make about a dozen phone calls, but I finally found the legitimate owner of the glasses.”

Sakovich screeched. “You can’t—I don’t believe you. It’s private information, you need a warrant for—”

“Zoltek’s glasses are in a photo with Callahan. Callahan gave the photo to a friend when he started fearing for his life. Zoltek fucked Callahan. Maybe you both fucked him, wouldn’t be surprised by that. You both had fun while it lasted, then dumped him when you found out he was HIV-positive. And when Callahan threatened to become a problem, Zoltek ordered you to get rid of the problem.”

“Can’t prove it.”
He swallowed. “You’re nuts, Presius. You’re gonna pay for this.”

I
held him down at gunpoint and twisted his arm until the collarbone cracked. “I don’t give a fuck, Sakovich. You’re done. Say bye-bye to the world, you don’t deserve to live a minute longer.”

“No,” he cried. “No, please. I’m sorry. I really am, Presius, I swear. What I did was wrong. Now don’t be stupid and let me go.
I’ll turn myself in. I promise.”

Now he was talking.

“Did you kill Callahan?”

He hesitated. I cocked the gun.
His bladder released completely this time. The smell repulsed me.

“Yes! Yes, I killed Callahan. I strangled him that night. Snuck up from behind and strangled him.”

“What did you do next?”

“What d’y
ou think I did next?”

I clicked my tongue. “
Did you look into his eyes, Sakovich? Did you watch him die as he—”

“Shut up! Fuck, Presius, he was a fag. Just another stupid fag who—
”

“Who died looking straight into your eyes?”

He groaned, his forehead scrunched in pain. “I couldn’t stare at his face, okay? There was a bottle of drain opener right there next to the trash. I grabbed it and poured it on his face. I—I just couldn’t… I couldn’t stand staring at his face.”

His police badge was tucked in his arm sleeve, together with his cell phone.
I yanked the strap off his injured arm, making him roar in pain.

“You don’t deserve an LAPD badge, you bastard.”

“I’m going to turn myself in! I swear! Just let me go and—”

“Not until you tell me where you dumped the firearm you used to kill Henkins.
”

“What? I didn’t—
”

I slammed his face down and pressed the gun harder against the back of his neck. He whimpered, bits of dead leaves stuck to his lips.

“Fine,” he croaked, and then he told me. He’d sawed the barrel off the gun and then dumped it in a septic tank. The bastard. I thought of Henkins, slouched on her couch, sunken in her failures and her pride; Henkins who’d helped cover up a murder and then regretted it; Henkins who’d falsified evidence but never admitted her own mistakes.

You’ve been too harsh on her, Ulysses.

And now she’s dead
.

“Fucking bastard you are, Sakovich,” I said. “She was drunk and unarmed. What kind of vicious snake are you to kill a fellow cop like that?”

His body tensed under mine. The reek of his perspiration peeked, his rage overcame his fear. “The vindictive bitch,” he spat. “She deserved to die.”

I inhaled, pulled the gun away from his neck.

“Finally,” he said. “Now, gimme back—”

He never finished the sentence. I squeezed the trigger and shot him in the head. A single round, straight to the temple. His body jolted. His muscles twitched for a few more seconds and then slackened.

The roar of gunfire ebbed off and all I could hear was my heart, thumping.

A strange calm took over me. I looked down on Sakovich’s body, his nose plastered with dirt, and a trickle of blood wiping down his temple.

“I was going to turn you in, Sakovich,” I said. “But you made one mistake.” I got off his back and snuggled his gun back into his right hand. “Next time show a grain of remorse.”