(2011) The Gift of Death (36 page)

‘
Okay – check them out. Two cars. I want both places searched at the same time. And Lansing - get on to Reckard senior, see if he’s had any contact with his son.’

‘
And what should we do about Roberta?’ asked Holt.

Fuck. He had forgotten about her.

‘
Ask her to wait. Tell her it’s for her own good.’

‘
And if she wants to leave?’

‘
Stop her. It’s not safe for her to go back home now.’

53

She had just met a friend downtown for a drink and was on her way back to her apartment when her Blackberry vibrated. She tapped the screen. She had three new emails. Probably something really dull from a public relations company or, even worse, a reader. God, she hated it when the general public got in contact asking her to follow up a story. Often she was sent useless bits of gossip from malicious neighbours motivated by petty squabbles over land disputes, tree felling or illicit love affairs. Usually, if she didn’t recognise the sender’s name, she would delete it straight away. She consigned the first two messages to her trash, but there was something about the third one that immediately forced her to take notice. ‘Information regarding the killer of Sara-Jane Gable,’ it read. She had trained herself not to get her hopes up, not to get too excited, but this sounded interesting.

She clicked on the email, its contents stopping her in her tracks. If what she had been sent was true then it could lead to the scoop of her career. Signed from a well-wisher, the email provided her with the name and address of the Sara-Jane’s murderer. Most likely he was the same man who had sent the fingertips to Cassie Veringer, the tongue to Jordan Weislander and the eyes to Dale Hoban.

Buoyed up by two vodka martinis, she ran to the lot where her car was parked. She took out her laptop and searched for the name Carl Reckard. Nothing came up of any relevance. She tried again using LexisNexis. Again nothing. Who was this guy? She did another search for the address. Nada. What about the white pages? The number wasn’t listed. There was only one sure way to find out whether the tip-off was real. It was dangerous, for sure. But this kind of story was worth the risk.

She tapped in the address into her GPS and set off from downtown towards Chatsworth. This could be it, she thought. Her chance to show her bosses what she was made of. She had wowed them in the past, for sure, but she had never covered anything like this. This kind of story was big. This was the Pulitzer prize. What was it that bitch Kate Cramer had said? That she had made up that story about her mother. That nobody would ever love her. Well, after reading this particular piece all the world would stand up and take notice of her. And surely that kind of attention was just as good as love.

As she drove, she thought about calling the out of hours LAPD media office to see if the cops were on to the story. But she knew those fuckers. They wouldn’t be able to confirm or deny it. And, if the police had not already been tipped off, they would certainly get to the address in Chatsworth quicker than she could. If that was the case, by the time she arrived they would already have cordoned off the house and she would have lost the exclusive. No, in order to make this happen she would have to work alone.

By the time she had reached Chatsworth she felt alive with adrenaline. No matter what anyone said, there was nothing like chasing a story. It was something people like Cramer just didn’t understand. And what was wrong with that woman anyway? She had chosen to throw away what sounded like a really cool job piecing together dead people’s faces to work as a photographer. And not even a press photographer. She was some kind of ‘artist’ now. Yeah, right. In her book that was just another word for failure.

The GPS guided her through a network of dark streets until she came to Itasca. She slowed down as she approached number 20941. The house looked shabby, run-down, neglected, but it didn’t look particularly sinister. But how was the home of a killer supposed to appear? Like something from a horror film? No, she had enough experience of human nature to know that it was often the most respectable of facades that concealed the most extreme forms of evil.

She got out of the car and looked up and down the street. Great. There were no cops. She was going to be the first.

She grabbed the rape alarm from her purse and dropped it into her jacket pocket. If there was any hint of trouble she would not hesitate to use it; she was certain out here in the valley the neighbours would call the cops. From her trunk she took out a can of pepper spray. A last resort in case things got messy.

She took a deep breath and walked up to the car port. There was no bell, so she hammered on the door. Nothing. She pressed her ear to the metal. Was that the faint sound of rock music coming from inside or was she imagining it? She knocked once more, but again there was no response.

Maybe there was a door or yard around the back. She took out her mobile, using its light to guide her through the darkness. Through the pocket of her jacket she felt the outline of the rape alarm. In her purse was the pepper spray. She would be fine. She was safe. Jesus, this was child’s play compared to what some of those female war correspondents had put themselves through. What was her name? Martha something? She couldn’t remember. But she was sure she would have done this with her eyes closed.

As she moved around the back of the house she spotted a door slightly ajar, a chink of light seeping out from the interior. She stepped towards it and gave it a slight push.

‘
Hello?’ she said, softly.

There was no answer. But she could hear some heavy rock from somewhere inside.

‘
Is there anyone home?’

As she said it, she realised she sounded ridiculous, like a hockey mom who had called round to one of her neighbours with a cherry pie. She reached out and pushed the door forwards a couple of inches. A little more light flooded out into the night, but still there wasn’t quite enough to see inside. She felt her breathing quicken. Her throat felt dry, constricted. She could walk away now. Go back home to the comfort of her downtown apartment and work from there. But would that not risk losing the story altogether? Perhaps this moment would define her future. Maybe stepping inside meant the difference between success and failure. Despite what her mother had said, she wasn’t a loser. Today she would finally prove to her that she was worth something.

She took a deep breath and then, in one swift action, opened the door, stepping inside. Immediately as she did so she felt nauseous with fear. There was something that smelt bad, like –

‘
What the –‘ she screamed as a hand grabbed her from behind.

She reached for the rape alarm in her pocket, but she was too slow. She tried to grapple for the pepper spray, but in that instant her purse was wrenched from her shoulder. Her eyes stretched wide in fear as a gloved hand clamped itself over her mouth. She fought with all her strength, but he was too strong. As she started to scream she felt a rope begin to tighten around her neck. It was then, in the last few moments of consciousness, that she thought about her mother and how much, despite everything, she still loved her.

54

‘
Josh – where are you? I’ve been trying to get through to you.’

‘
Kate – sorry – I can’t talk now.’

‘
Why? What’s happened?’

‘
I thing we may have a breakthrough. I can’t go into it now, but –‘

‘
But shit, Josh. I know I’m not on your team, but I want to follow this through.’

‘
No way. I should never have let you get so involved.’

‘
But I am involved, or have your forgotten?’

‘
You’re a victim in this case, remember, not an investigator.’

‘
Oh come on, Josh. Let me in on this.’

‘
No.’

Josh could almost hear the anger in her silence.

‘
Okay. If that’s the way you want to play it. I’ve got a couple of leads of my own I thought I’d follow through.’

‘
What do you mean?’

‘
It’s obvious, isn’t it? Ryan Gleason obviously faked his own death and stole the identity of another man. I’ve got a list of few names I might just check out.’

Was she bluffing? Had she been sent information regarding Carl Reckard?

‘
What’ve you got?’

‘
I’m not telling.’

Jesus, she could be fucking annoying.

‘
Kate, I’m in no mood for these games.’

‘
I’m not playing a game. I’m just trying to find out who wants to fuck with my head and possibly try to kill me and me unborn child. I wouldn’t say that was much of a game, would you?’

‘
Okay. Calm down.’ He knew what she was capable of. That little episode when she had nearly got herself killed by that maniac albino who’d been so obsessed by Gleason he had taken his name. He couldn’t risk her going off by herself. Not now.

‘
This is what we’ll do,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the Parker in ten. Can you do that?’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
And you can come in the car with me and Curtis. How does that suit?’

‘
Perfect. And Josh?’

‘
What?’

‘
Thank you.’

55

He was doing it again. That shifty I’m-not-going-to-meet-your-eye thing. The last time he’d done that was at the beach house, when he had confessed about his relationship with Jules. What did he have to hide now?

‘
How are you?’ she asked, as he got out of the car.

‘
Fine,’ he said, taking his sunglasses off and pretending to clean them. He could tell that she was scrutinising him. Shit. He hated it when she did that.

‘
So where are we off to?’ she asked.

‘
You don’t know?’

Kate had not got a clue about Josh’s lead. She knew nothing about the letter or the identity of the man that Ryan Gleason may have stolen. But she couldn’t lower her guard now.

He laughed. ‘Get in, you bullshitter.’ He turned to Curtis, who was in the back seat, tapping away furiously into a laptop. ‘You know, Curtis. Curtis, you’ve met Kate Cramer.’

‘
Hi there – how are you?’ said Curtis.

‘
Fine, thanks. So I take it you’ve found the name Ryan stole?’

‘
Yes, we think so,’ said Curtis. ‘I’m just doing some more background searches now.’ She shot a look towards Harper, a tacit request whether she should reveal any more information. He nodded. ‘We have reason to believe that Ryan Gleason, after faking his death in a car accident, assumed the identity of a Carl Reckard, a paranoid schizophrenic. He had lost touch with his family and friends back home in Russell County, Kansas, and had never made any kind of network of friends here in LA. No-one reported him missing, he never registered with any medical practice in the city – my guess is he couldn’t afford it – and he kind of existed under the radar.’

‘
Sounds like the perfect prey for someone like Gleason,’ said Kate, conscious of the fact that now she was referring to the son rather than his monstrous father.

‘
Exactly,’ said Curtis.

As they drove towards Chatsworth, Josh told her about the contents of Paul Taylor’s letter. But still he wouldn’t meet her eye. What was he keeping from her? If Curtis – beautiful, smart, efficient Curtis – had not been sitting in the back seat she would have been able to ask him straight out. And she knew that he knew. The clever bastard.

‘
But what makes you think that this is for real?’ Kate asked. ‘You know the kind of psychos out there who get off on claiming guilt for crimes they never committed?’

‘
Like Gideon Walsh? You don’t need to remind me what a fuck-up that was.’

‘
I wasn’t referring to Walsh, but well – yes.’

Kate felt her face stinging. It was, after all, her pathetic attempt at amateur detective work that had led Harper to Walsh. That had turned out to be nothing but a false lead, and a time-consuming one at that. Now it was obvious to everyone involved in the investigation that he had had nothing to do with the crimes. And it seemed as though his fantasy world – his worship at the altar of Gleason – had finally taken its toll. A future in a secure psychiatric ward, rather than a prison, looked increasingly likely for him. A vision of Walsh’s ghostly face flashed through her mind. If it hadn’t have been for Josh she was sure that, even though he wasn’t the particular psycho they were looking for, he would have killed her anyway.