City of Echoes (18 page)

“I’m sorry, Dr. Madina,” he could hear her saying in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Everything you and Dr. Baylor just said makes a great deal of sense to me. I think you’re both probably very good at your jobs, and you know better than I do how things like this work. But I need to see my daughter. I need to see her one last time.”

A beat went by, impregnated by darkness. Then Madina glanced at Baylor, switched off the video monitor with the remote, and everyone rose from the table.

“Mrs. Anderson,” Baylor said. “This is Matt Jones, one of the detectives assigned to your daughter’s case.”

Although what the doctor had just said wasn’t exactly accurate, Matt ignored it and shook the woman’s hand. She nodded slightly but was too upset to hold the gaze or say anything. When he glanced back at Baylor, something was going on with him as well. Fear? Nerves? Compassion? He seemed overwhelmingly concerned for Brooke Anderson’s mother. And as Matt followed them out the door, he watched him take her arm and support her.

The elevator was at the other end of the hall. They walked in silence. A death march. When Matt’s phone began vibrating in his pocket, he pulled it out and slid the lock open. Cabrera had sent a text message:
Contact info still good. We’re on for 10
. Matt checked his watch and sent a one-word reply. Although he would be facing rush-hour traffic, most people would be headed downtown. He thought he could make it on time.

The elevator doors opened. As he stepped inside with the others, he immediately became aware of the harsh odors emanating from the morgue and operating room in the basement. He could see it registering across Mrs. Anderson’s face as well. He noted her grip on Dr. Baylor’s arm. She was squeezing it as if holding on for dear life. When the doors opened in the basement, the smell of rotting flesh became even stronger, and the woman’s face turned grim and lost all of its color.

Matt wished that he had spoken up. He wished he could have convinced her that nothing good could come from this. He was with Baylor. He got it. He understood. Brooke Anderson’s mother. They were walking in her shoes now.

“This way, please,” Madina said.

They followed him past the operating room and down the hall to the very end, the sound of an ME’s electric skull saw cutting against the sound of their shoes beating against the tiled floor. They stood in silence as Madina unlocked a door and swung it open.

Brooke Anderson was here, lying beneath a sheet on a stainless steel gurney.

A long moment passed before they entered the room, like driving by the last exit before hitting a toll road. When Madina closed the door, Matt became aware of the bright fluorescent lights vibrating and humming. The white walls and the white sheet. It was a small room, almost the same size as the elevator, and Matt could smell Brooke Anderson’s corpse through the sheet. He remembered kneeling beside her nude body in Hollywood Hills that night, the smell of her soap and shampoo wafting in the cool fresh air.

But all of that was gone now. The only thing left was the stench.

He looked up and saw the girl’s mother leaning against Baylor’s chest with her arms up and ready to block the view. Both of them looked terrified, their eyes big and wild and pinned to the white sheet.

And then Madina lifted the cover away, and their faces froze as if someone had crept into the room and taken a snapshot.

Matt followed their gaze down to Brooke Anderson’s face and took the hit. Time hadn’t been very kind to the victim. The Glasgow smile. The Chelsea grin. The cuts between her ears and lips were even more exaggerated, more distressing, more hideous than before. Matt wasn’t sure if there was a God or not, but that was the first thing that entered his mind. As he stared at the girl’s wounds, he wondered what God would do if he did exist. Would he fix her face? Or would she be forced to pass through the heavens like this for the rest of eternity? Would it depend on who she had been? Would it depend on how she had acted throughout the course of her short life? Would it depend on anything at all? But even more, could anyone or anything, even a god, really fix this?

He heard the girl’s mother let out a yelp and looked at her. The snapshot had become unglued, the mother cringing and shaking and weeping as Baylor held her from behind. She couldn’t stop looking at her daughter’s face. She was moving her lips, but nothing was coming out. Matt watched Baylor trying to comfort her but knew that they were five minutes too late. They had used the elevator to reach the basement. They had opened the door at the end of the hall and lifted the sheet away.

They had looked at her.

The girl’s mother struggled to take a breath. Her chest heaved. She was drowning in it. She was ruined.

CHAPTER 36

The twenty-mile drive between the coroner’s office and Playa del Rey took just over an hour. Matt didn’t mind. The sun had burned off the marine layer, the sky a bright blue. In spite of the cool air, the windows were down, the wind beating against his face.

He needed it.

He cruised down Pershing Drive and made the turn toward the ocean. Every house on the quiet street came equipped with a million-dollar view of the beach. If you could get past how close each house stood to the next, how tight the lots were packed, how surreal it all seemed, every one of them had the look and feel of having been made in paradise. When he spotted Leah Reynolds’s house three doors down, he realized that it was no exception. He noted the large windows, the wraparound decks off each floor, a central chimney that housed three flues, and what appeared to be an enclosed terrace for a small pool and spa. But even more, he could smell the ocean in the air, the salt water. And when he pulled in behind Cabrera’s SUV and switched off the engine, he could hear the waves crashing on the beach without the sound of a freeway in the background.

He thought about his run-down house in the hills overlooking Potrero Canyon Park and smiled a little. He hadn’t smiled in four days, and he needed that, too.

Cabrera got out of his car and walked over. Matt disconnected the charger and checked the battery on his phone as he switched off the ringer. The power icon indicated only a slight charge. It wouldn’t be enough to get through the morning.

“How’d it go with Brooke Anderson’s mother?”

Matt gave him a look and got out of the car. “We’re in a bad place, Denny. I caught Orlando peeping on Hughes’s wife last night. I think he’s the one who broke into the house the night before. He stole the files Hughes was keeping on Faith Novakoff’s murder, then went into the bedroom for a look at his wife. I think there’s a good chance he’s a perv.”

“You think he suspects what we know?”

Matt shrugged. “Probably not that they planted evidence on Harris or murdered three cops. Probably none of the details. We wouldn’t be here if he did. But he knows something’s up. And he knows it’s not good.”

“How? Why?”

“Because my .45 was aimed at his chest.”

Cabrera let it sink in, then shook his head.

Matt looked up at the house. It was a good guess that the young woman with light brown hair watching them from the deck was Leah Reynolds. She waved at them with a tentative expression on her face, then walked into the house. A moment later she opened the front door.

Matt led the way up the steps. He pulled out his ID, but Reynolds didn’t do much more than glance at it before showing them into the living room. As she found a place on the couch, he looked her over and wondered, just as he always did, how anyone could hurt her. How anyone could deliberately hurt anyone at all.

Reynolds was a gentle-looking woman with an angular face, freckled cheeks, and brown eyes that weren’t much darker than her tanned skin. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her bare feet and legs folded beneath her body. When she offered them coffee, both Matt and Cabrera thanked her but declined.

“Nice neighborhood,” Matt said.

She smiled at him. “I’m lucky to live here.”

“Are we gonna get you in trouble with your boss?” Cabrera asked. “Are you gonna be late for work?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. I’m not working right now.”

Matt understood what Cabrera was getting at because he had thought the same thing. He looked around the room. The tiled floors, the fireplace, the modern furniture, the oversized windows facing the ocean. Reynolds had money.

“Who lives here with you?” he said.

He must have touched a nerve because she looked down at the floor and lowered her voice. She was thinking about something.

“No one,” she said. “I really haven’t been able to . . . you know . . . be with anyone for a long time.”

Matt knew that it didn’t matter that five years had passed since the woman had been raped by Jamie Taladyne. Rape usually carried a life sentence for its victims. Usually, but not every time. There were always the lucky ones.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We can’t thank you enough for talking to us. And I apologize for both me and my partner for any bad memories that might resurface.”

She nodded but seemed to become more timid. “Did he do it to someone else? Your partner told me on the phone that you were working on something similar.”

“It’s possible,” Matt said. “For now we’re just trying to get a sense of who Taladyne is and where he might have moved to. Things have come up that weren’t covered when you met with Detectives Grace and Rodriguez a while back. We’d like to hear what happened to you in your own words. Taladyne served two years in prison. I realize that’s not nearly enough time. But we were wondering if you’d seen him since his release. We were wondering if he ever tried to contact you.”

She shook her head. Her eyes had lost their focus and reach.

“My counselor said that he might, but he never did. After the trial, I never saw him again.”

“What about phone calls? Frequent hang-ups?”

“My number’s unlisted.”

Matt glanced at Cabrera, then turned back to Reynolds. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

She paused a moment to compose herself. When she finally spoke, Matt had to lean forward to hear her.

“I was going to school in Westwood,” she said. “I had a single room in a dorm that was being renovated. I saw him every day. He was nice to me. He seemed like a good guy. Jamie always had a smile. I used to talk to him. Once or twice we went out for coffee. I kind of liked him. Then one night I came back to my room after dinner and he was waiting for me. He tied me to the bed. He took off my clothes. He cut them off with a box cutter. A razor blade. And then he raped me. He didn’t stop until the next morning.”

Matt traded looks with Cabrera again. As difficult as it was to listen to, Reynold’s story seemed to mirror the events leading up to Millie Brown’s murder.

His phone started vibrating and he reached into his pocket. When he saw Lieutenant McKensie’s name blinking on the face, he looked back at Reynolds.

“I’m sorry but I have to take this.” Matt turned to Cabrera. “It’s Frankie’s supervisor. It’s McKensie.”

Cabrera’s eyes widened a little. Matt got up, opened the slider, and stepped onto the deck as he punched in the call. McKensie didn’t sound very happy.

“We need to meet, and we need to meet right now, Jones.”

Matt hesitated, feeling another wave of paranoia sweep over him. “Why can’t we talk over the phone?” he said. “What do you want?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I lost two homicide detectives this week. My office, Jones. Not later. Now. Or I swear I’ll nail your sorry fucking ass to the cross.”

The call ended, but not with a hang-up. Instead, it sounded more like McKensie had thrown the phone against the wall. It sounded like he was in a real bad mood.

CHAPTER 37

Matt pulled into the visitor’s lot at the North Hollywood station and found a place to park where he could keep an eye on the front entrance. Releasing his seat belt, he pried the lid off a cup of coffee that he’d picked up at the 7-Eleven next door and took a quick sip. The coffee was strong and piping hot and tasted like it had just been brewed. He took another sip through the steam, trying to force himself to relax and stay focused.

Cops were walking in and out of the building. Patrol units were passing through the lot and making the turn onto Burbank Boulevard. Few looked his way, and those who did didn’t seem very interested. Everything appeared casual enough. Through his windshield, everything he saw looked ordinary and true.

Matt didn’t know what to make of it.

He wondered if all the paranoia and dread wasn’t blowback from the war. While he had never experienced any issues in the past, he wondered if seeing Brooke Anderson’s body, or even the anticipation of seeing her body, had triggered something so deep inside he couldn’t find it or even name it.

He thought about his father. Or maybe it was just the idea of having a father. Someone he could talk to, and—

He tried to clear his mind.

He was disappointed that he couldn’t stay with Cabrera and see the interview through with Leah Reynolds. Still, they had talked it over before he’d left, and he felt confident that he and Cabrera were on the same page.

Unlike Millie Brown, Reynolds was alive and had seen Taladyne every day before the rape. They had talked, and as she said, they had something going on. It didn’t matter how casual it might have been. Matt knew that there was still the chance that Taladyne had spoken about himself—the things he liked to do and the places he liked to go. Still a chance that he might have said something that could point them to where he had been hiding since Ron Harris hung himself in his jail cell. But just as important to Matt were questions he knew that Grace and Rodriguez couldn’t possibly have covered, given the fact that they had been investigating a single murder. Did Taladyne ever mention that he had a problem with people who had money? Did he ever talk about greed or religion? Did Reynolds sense that he was bitter or angry? Did he ever say anything about hating something or someone for whatever reason? Did Taladyne ever talk about seeking revenge?

Matt took a last sip of coffee and got out of the car. As he walked toward the entrance, he could feel the butterflies working his stomach. He thought that he might be shaking, but when he checked his hands they looked steady.