Burn (29 page)

Timms found Drea outside post-op, talking with Ron Hill from the SMPD robbery table. He rubbed his eyes and rolled his shoulders and joined them.

“There's the hotshot.” Hill looked him up and down. He shook his head. “I'd ask how life in the majors is treating you, Adrian, but that just seems cruel. When's the last time you slept three hours in a row?”

“The AC's out at my place, ” Timms told him. He nodded at the heavy-duty evidence bag in Hill's left hand. “What's in the Hefty?”

Ron held up the bag.

Drea said, “Still don't know what it is, but I'm guessing you'll probably be able to get a
really
big discount now.”

Timms peered through the plastic. He saw chain, the duct-taped skullcap, the iron weight.

“You're kidding, ” he said. He looked at Ron. “He rolled on Kindler with that thing?”

Ron Hill nodded. “Yup. Went Gladiator on the guy.”

Timms whistled.

“Lucky all he's got is a broken arm, ” Hill said. “According to Kindler, the swinger was headhunting.”

Drea put her hand under the bag, hefted it. “Could have left a mark.”

“Could have left a big wet ditch, ” Hill said. He glanced at Timms, did a double-take. “Hey. Hotshot. What's the matter? You look like you saw a hypnotist.”

Timms just kept looking at the bag. He reached out his hand. “Ron, you mind?”

“Be my guest.”

Timms took the evidence pack and held it in both hands, feeling the weight of it. He pressed the plastic
around the edges of the iron plate, finding its boundaries with his fingers.

He looked at Drea.

“Hey, ” he said. “Who's that computer tech down at SID who keeps asking you to lunch?”

Drea crinkled her brow. “Webster? He's not my type. Why?”

“Find his home number, call him up, and get him to meet us at the shop in an hour.”

“It's two in the morning.”

“I bet if you asked him nice.”

“What's up?”

Timms handed the evidence bag back to Hill. “Ron, good seeing you. I'll get in touch in the morning. Give Shirley and the kids a kiss for me.”

“I can do that.” Hill cocked his head. “Get a bingo?”

“We'll see, ” Timms said.

He fished out his cell and held up a finger to Drea:
one hour.
He used the same finger to dial the home number of Doren Lomax as he walked back down the hall.

THE
software Marcus Webster showed them had originally been developed by a plastic surgeon right here in Los Angeles. The doctor had been using it in his own practice for years to show patients how beautiful they
could
be with just this much here, this much there.

The same principles of computer-aided 3-D modeling could also show you what you'd look like with, say, an exit wound. Or a bashed-in skull.

Timms had heard about the stuff last spring when SID had started a pilot evaluation of the software in-house. The programmer who had created the software for the plastic surgeon now moonlighted as a subcontractor to the LAPD, working with SID to tailor the program specifically toward forensic applications.

“So something like this, ” Timms said, handing Webster the item he'd collected from the Lomax Enterprises
building a half hour ago. “How long would it take to put that in the computer?”

Webster yawned. His computer screen provided the only light in the lab. He reached out and flipped on the desk lamp, weighing the iron plate on one palm.

“Weigh it, take the dimensions, CAD it up, render it.” He yawned again. “Not a long time. What do you want me to do with it?”

“I want you to check it against the autopsy data you've got for Gregor Tavlin.” Timms read him a series of DR numbers. “You can do some voodoo with the model of the object and the models of the head wound, right?”

“I can crunch a probability based on the dimensions and the fracture points, ” Webster said. “But it'll only be rough. Not sure what good it'll do you.”

“Rough works, ” Timms told him. “I'm just scratching an itch.”

“Oh, well, in
that
case, ” Webster said. “Glad I hopped out of bed in the middle of the night and hauled my butt to the office. I mean I wouldn't want you to stay awake
itching
or anything.”

Timms patted him on the shoulder. “We'll owe you one.”

Drea said, “Where'd you get that?”

“Lomax building, ” Timms said. He nodded at Webster. “I pulled a commissioner out of bed too, if that makes you feel better.”

“It's a real privilege.”

Drea said, “Let's hear it.”

“I remembered seeing one like it on Todman's desk this morning, ” Timms told her. “Didn't really register. Lomax junior and Lomax senior have 'em, too. This is senior's.”

Drea took the barbell plate from Webster and hefted it the same way she'd hefted the one in Ron Hill's evidence bag.

“To the Max, ” she said, turning it over. “Doren Lo-max.”

“Lomax says he had these made up for his managers. For the ten-year anniversary of the cable show.”

Drea got interested. Webster stifled another yawn.

Timms opened up the case folder he'd grabbed from his desk on the way down.

“Something's been bugging me about this for three days, ” he said. “Didn't lock on it until we were standing around at the hospital.”

He pulled out the copy of
Health & Fitness
magazine, opened it up to the “Bold Behind the Beautiful” spread. He put the magazine on Webster's desk under the light of the lamp and tapped a finger on one of the sidebar photos: a tight shot of Tavlin in his office at home.

“See it? Trophy shelf, just over his left shoulder. It's on a little display tripod. The focus is soft, but you can still tell what it is.”

Drea leaned in. “Okay.”

“Web, ” Timms said. “You've got access to the photo banks from this terminal?”

“I have access to the photo banks from this terminal.”

Timms gave him another DR number. “Pull that one up, will you?”

Webster went to the keyboard. He tapped for half a minute and sat back again.

“Okay, ” Timms said. “This is one of the digitals from the house search. Web, can you enlarge this area here?”

Web drew a square on the screen with the mouse. More tapping. He sat back.

Timms nodded to Drea. “Same trophy shelf. What don't you see?”

She took a couple minutes.

“Okay I'm with you, ” she said. She sounded like she wanted to be optimistic but couldn't quite commit. “But they'd had their tiff by that time. Tavlin was probably pissed off. Maybe he just took it down.”

“Maybe, ” Timms said. “Maybe somebody else did.”

Drea chewed on it some more. “Okay. Say you found our weapon in theory. We still haven't
found
it.”

“Right, ” Timms said. He was starting to feel the juice. Sometimes a little sleep deprivation did wonders for the powers of association. “But I'm thinking about everything else we didn't find.”

SID's workup of Gregor Tavlin's home had been notable in one respect: the place was clean. Extremely clean. You expected to find a certain amount of human residue in any residence, crime or no crime. Fingerprints, hair, fibers, flakes of skin. On doorknobs, telephone receivers, in the carpets and cushions.

The main traffic areas in Gregor Tavlin's house had been uncommonly free of such common leavings. But Tavlin had employed a maid service that came in three times a week, and they'd been there on the afternoon of July 30. The techs had chalked it up to thorough housekeeping.

“Suppose somebody else did a little mopping up, ” Timms said.

Drea nodded along, going with it. “We could do it again. Fine-tooth that sucker, top to bottom, interiors and exteriors. The whole works. Hit that office hard. Sinks, drains. If there was a mess, whoever cleaned it up had to miss a spot somewhere. Especially if SID did.”

Timms smiled. “It's like you're reading my mind.”

“Hey, do me next, ” Webster said. “What am I thinking?”

Drea looked at him. Timms saw the corner of her mouth twitch.

“Enough to get slapped, ” she said. “But not enough to really piss me off.”

Marcus Webster dropped Timms a wink. “Matter of time.”

He cracked his knuckles and went to work.

DENNY
Hoyle hated the smell of a hospital in the morning.

It smelled like sick people. Wasn't any way to start off a day. Plus, you never knew where the hell you were going in these places, and the nurses all looked sideways at you if you asked.

Denny didn't even know why he was making the effort. Goddamn Luther. They give him his phone call, and who does he dial?

Denny didn't care if Luther
was
shot. And arrested. After the way he had dodged him all day yesterday— pretty much confirming what Denny had heard from Rod—the guy had some goddamn nerve.

It was almost 9:00
A.M.
by the time Denny finally found where they were keeping him. Private room way the hell on the other side of the first floor. Uniform cop outside the door. Denny walked up on him.

“Hey, partner. Luther Vines in here?”

The cop didn't say yes or no. He just hooked his thumbs in his belt like a tough guy. “Sorry sir. No visitors.”

“What you talkin’ about? No visitors. He's in custody he ain't contagious. Least as far as I heard.”

“Sorry sir.” The cop looked him up and down. “No offense, but you don't look like immediate family. So unless you're his lawyer, you'll have to come back some other time.”

“Yeah, well, I'm his lawyer. Stand aside, Barney.”

“You're his lawyer.” The cop nodded. “Is that right?”

“That's right. You got a problem with that?”

“You don't look like a lawyer.”

Smirking prick.

“Oh, yeah?” Denny looked the cop over. “How long you been on the job, rookie? Four months? Six?”

“A year in September. Sir.”

“Hey shit. A whole year! I bet you just about seen it all. Tell me something. What's a lawyer look like?”

“I don't know, sir. Do you have some ID?”

“I'll do you one better.” Denny pulled his wallet. He fished out the business card of the guy who'd gotten a bullshit agg assault charge thrown out of court for him a few years back. “Go ahead and keep that. Gimme a call next time you're under review.”

The cop looked at the card. He looked at Denny.

“Do you have a driver's license I can match with this, Mr. Wunderlich?”

“I don't drive. Puts holes in the ozone.”

“Tell you what, ” the cop said. “Say something legal.”

Playing around with him now.

“E pluribus fuck you, ” Denny said. He took back the card and snatched the gold pen out of the cop's shirt pocket before the flat-footed rookie doofus even moved.

He scribbled six random digits. “Here's my association number. Tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna stand right here while you truck your green ass around the corner to that courtesy phone and check me out with the state bar. Then when you come back, we'll go over Miranda. Just as a review. How's that sound, Officer Lowell, badge number 949?”

The cop's cheeks went red. His eyes faltered a minute before hardening up again.

“Why don't you come with me to the telephone, Mr. Wunderlich. We'll get this sorted out.”

“I'll wait right here and make sure nobody else with a gun and a badge comes around to violate my client's rights. But thanks, you go on ahead.”

The cop eyed him. He looked at the number on the card.

“Right here outside this door, ” he said, pointing like he was training a puppy.
“Outside
this door, Mr. Wunderlich.”

“Aye-aye, Barney.” Denny snapped a salute. “Believe me, I won't want to miss seein’ your face come back around that corner.”

The cop took one last look at him. He seemed to be having trouble making a decision.

He finally took the card and strode off down the hall, gun belt creaking with authority. Denny waited for him to round the corner. Gave it a count of five.

Went on in.

Luther was in bed, inclined about halfway. His eyes were closed, and he had a couple tubes sticking out of him. Plus oxygen in his nose, an IV dripping away, one of those heart monitors beeping softly off to the side. He looked like he didn't feel good.

“Yo, Luthe, ” Denny said.

Luther opened his eyes.

“Got yourself shot, huh? That's a bummer.”

Luther tried to sit up, winced, sagged back again.

“Can't stay, gotta get to work. Tape day. Plus that cop oughta be back pretty quick. But you called, so here I am. What'd you want?”

He said something, but Denny couldn't make it out.

“Say what?”

Luther motioned for water. Denny grabbed the plastic cup on the bedstand and bent the straw so Luther could get his lips around it without raising his head. Luther said something else, but Denny still couldn't hear him.

“Man, you gotta speak up.” He bent down over the bed, across the railing, putting his ear closer to Luther's mouth.

This time he heard what Luther was going on about. He didn't understand much of it, but he heard most of it. He straightened.

“Hip sack. In the front seat?”

Luther nodded.

“In this pay lot you're talkin’ about.”

Luther nodded again.

“You don't think the cops found your car by now? Shit, dude. They probably already impounded it.”

When Luther started moving his lips again, Denny bent down one more time. He listened to Luther go on.

When he finally stood up, he just couldn't help smiling.

“Todman did that?” He almost had to laugh. “No shit.”

Luther just lay there like he was all out of strength. He closed his eyes.

“That's a bitch.” Denny leaned down, put his elbows on the bed rail. “Kinda funny, though.”

Luther opened his eyes again and looked at him.

“Hey, don't worry. I'll go check it out. See what I see. Your car's still there, and I can get into it. I'll grab this disc you're talkin’ about. What are friends for, right?”

Luther kept watching him. Denny reached out and tipped him some more water. While Luther sipped on the straw, Denny leaned down further and whispered into his ear.