City of Echoes (21 page)

He popped open the lid on another cup of coffee from the 7-Eleven beside the North Hollywood station. After a couple of sips, he lit a cigarette and climbed into his car. Frankie’s apartment had offered them a vast array of fingerprints. Although it would take a while before the lab could process them all, the samples they’d lifted from the apartment, particularly the front door and den, were ultraclean. Both criminalists had told Matt that there was no evidence the place had been wiped down or disturbed in any way.

No evidence, other than Frankie’s neighbor, that Orlando and Plank had been there. No evidence at all that they had made it inside.

He grabbed the murder book off the backseat and leafed through the pages until he found Leah Reynolds’s phone number at the beach. He entered it into his cell and waited. After seven rings her voice mail picked up. He left a brief message, then pulled out of the lot onto Burbank Boulevard. An entrance ramp to the Hollywood Freeway was just down the street.

Mint Canyon could wait until morning. But Jenna Marconi’s place in Echo Park was on the way to Playa del Rey. He thought he should stop by and talk to her neighbor. He wanted to see if she knew why Marconi wasn’t returning McKensie’s phone calls. Because Frankie was a cop, news of his death would have spread through the Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD before his charred body made it to the morgue. Keeping his name on ice for another day seemed like a long shot, and there was no way Matt would let the woman hear about Frankie’s death on her own. He’d seen how Laura had taken the news. He couldn’t let it happen to Jenna Marconi, no matter how long they might have been together or how close or far apart they were. If she kept a negligee at Frankie’s place, she deserved to hear about his fate from a friend.

Traffic heading into town wasn’t as heavy as he expected, and he made the fifteen-mile drive to Echo Park in thirty-five minutes. Once he exited the freeway onto surface streets, he headed north on Alvarado just west of the lake, made a right on Sunset, and then a left on Quintero. Marconi’s home was at the end of the street on the corner.

Matt pulled over and gazed at the house for a moment. The lights were on. While they may have been on timers, he thought that he could see the shadow of someone thrown against the drawn curtains. He looked up and down the street, wondering if he had the right address. From the variety of homes, their condition, and their size, it appeared to be a neighborhood in transition a stone’s throw from Dodger Stadium. But under the cover of darkness, he couldn’t tell if the people who lived here were on their way up or falling down.

He dug his phone out of his pocket, found Laura’s number, and hit Call. When she picked up, he lit a cigarette, switched off the air conditioner, and lowered the window.

“It’s me, Laura. It’s Matt.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s good, but I’m gonna be late.”

“I thought you might be,” she said. “Did you see the press conference? Were you there?”

Matt remained quiet, thinking it over and wondering how Grace, Orlando, and Plank were going to explain Kevin’s murder after the Sheriff’s Department found the three-piece bandit’s Glock 20 and determined that it had never been fired. As of today they no longer had a reasonable theory for the robbery and killing. As of today they’d lost their fall guy, their scapegoat, their chump, their dupe, or anyone else who could’ve taken the ride for their murder spree.

“Did anyone call you, Laura?”

“No,” she said in a quiet voice.

“What did they say at the press conference? Did anyone mention Kevin’s name?”

“They did. And they said that the robber had been shot last night in West Hollywood.”

“What did they say about Kevin?”

She paused. When she finally spoke, Matt could hear the emotion in her voice. The anguish.

“That it would take time to sort things out,” she said. “That it would take more time.”

Her voice faded from a throaty whisper into a silence with weight to it. An open wound.

Matt took a pull on his smoke and exhaled, his eyes still riveted to the house. He saw the shadow move across the curtain. This time he was sure of it. And Matt’s memory was tack sharp. The house number matched the address that McKensie had jotted down in his file. He could see it. Jenna Marconi had made the trip from Seattle one day early and was home.

“Are you okay, Laura?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she whispered.

“Okay,” he said. “Tell me.”

“The way Kevin was murdered, and then Frankie. This was never about the guy they shot last night, was it? The man the news calls the three-piece bandit never had anything to do with Kevin or Frankie.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think he did.”

“This is about that girl they found in the park, isn’t it?”

“It’s complicated, Laura. I’d rather talk about it when we’re sitting in the same room.”

“That’s okay, Matt. I get it. I already know the answer.”

He waited a moment. He could hear her breathing over the phone. He could picture her sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of wine. She knew too much. Even though it had only been a guess on her part, a hunch, she could be in danger now. He wished that she had gone to Philadelphia.

“I’ve got a question for you,” he said in a lower voice.

“What?”

“It’s about Frankie. It’s easy.”

“Ask me anything,” she said.

“Was he seeing anyone?”

She didn’t say anything at first, and Matt sensed that the question surprised her.

“Frankie never spoke about it,” she said finally. “But Kevin thought that he was. He didn’t want to press him. Frankie was shy and liked his privacy. We invited him over for dinner a few weeks ago. We were hoping that he’d bring her along, but he showed up alone.”

“So the name Jenna Marconi means nothing to you?”

“Is that her name?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there something about her that Frankie might have been embarrassed about?”

“I thought the same thing,” he said. “But no, at least not on the outside. She’s thirty-five and she’s a knockout.”

“Maybe it’s just too new.”

He hadn’t thought about that. He checked his watch.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe he wasn’t ready. Listen, I’m sorry but I’ve gotta go. Are you gonna be okay?”

“Until around midnight, I guess.”

Her voice was back. She was hanging in there. She was tough.

“I’ll see you then,” he said. “We’ll talk if you want.”

Laura said good-bye and Matt slipped the phone back into his pocket while trying to clear his mind. It wasn’t easy, especially here and now. He climbed out of the car, got rid of his cigarette, and crossed the street. As he approached the front door, memories of Frankie rushed through his mind and he thought about how he would deliver the bad news. The words he would use. His tone of voice. Two death notifications inside a week. Two dead guys who were part of his own life. Maybe she’d be like Laura—take one look at his face and know.

He found the doorbell, heard the ring, and felt his heart beating as he waited. The shadow cast on the drawn curtain started forward but then hesitated and froze. Matt didn’t get it and rang the doorbell again. When Marconi’s shadow remained still, he leaned forward and spoke through the door.

“Jenna, it’s Matt Jones. I’m a friend of Frankie’s. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

He listened for several moments but couldn’t hear any movement from inside the house. When he glanced back at the window, Marconi’s shadow was gone.

He didn’t understand why she was doing this. Was it possible that she already knew and wanted to be left alone?

He stepped away from the door, taking another look at the house. The driveway was gated and included a warning that guard dogs were on the property. Matt peered over the gate into the backyard. The entire place was fenced in, but he saw no signs of a dog. Just lawn furniture, a grill, and a late-model Chevy sedan parked before the garage. Thinking it over, he realized that if she really owned a dog, he would have heard it bark when he rang the doorbell.

He started down the sidewalk, slowing as he reached the corner. The curtains were open on this side of the house, as were the windows, and he could see the light from a television flickering in a darkened room. He tried to look inside, but the ground on the adjoining street sloped too far downward. The wood-paneled fence was higher here as well and matched the angle of the hill.

He started down Macbeth Street. After passing a row of bushes, he noticed a small gate in the gloom. At first glance he thought it opened to the property next door. But as he moved closer, he realized that this was his way into the backyard. Even better, he didn’t see a lock. The gate was attached to the fence by a simple latch.

Without hesitating, Matt swung open the gate and stepped into the yard. He paused a moment, glancing at the moon overhead and studying the way the shafts of light from the open windows cut into the night and fell onto the lawn. Once he found the lanes of darkness, he was invisible and started forward in utter silence. He could see Marconi in the living room window as he approached. He could see her—

Matt knelt down before the window, the adrenaline bursting through his veins in a rush that made him dizzy. His eyes flicked around the dingy room, stopped on the TV, then jetted back to the couch. He tried to focus. Tried to keep cool.

It wasn’t Jenna Marconi lowering the sound and dropping the remote on the coffee table.

It was the killer, Jamie Taladyne, in the flesh.

CHAPTER 41

The front door crashed open and Joey Orlando burst into the living room with his shoulder lowered. Matt backed out of the window light as he watched Taladyne jump to his feet in terror. But then everything slowed down when Plank followed his partner into the house with a shotgun, and Bob Grace, the cop who had murdered his own partner and scammed the man’s wife, sauntered into the living room looking fresh and mean in a dark gray suit.

Orlando grabbed Taladyne, smashed him in the face, and pushed his crumpled body back onto the couch. After cuffing him around the front, he pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the man. Not the 9 mm semiautomatic holstered to his belt but a snub-nosed revolver that he’d fished out of his pocket.

A throw-down gun, and Orlando just happened to be wearing a pair of leather gloves. Trouble in Echo Park tonight.

Matt checked the yard behind him, then turned back and gazed through the open window, his mind reeling. Frankie had found Taladyne but hadn’t made an arrest. He’d even bought him dinner last Thursday night.

Why?

Orlando pressed the gun against Taladyne’s head as Grace switched on a lamp and sat down on the coffee table directly before the man. Curiously, on Grace’s nod, Plank handed over the shotgun and hurried out of the house.

“Jamie Taladyne,” Grace said with a smile and in a smooth voice brimming with confidence and danger. “Great seeing you again. How long’s it been, Jamie?”

Taladyne remained quiet and edgy and looked confused. From his view through the window, Matt couldn’t tell if he was seeing fear in the man’s sky-blue eyes or complete madness. All the same, he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and seventy-five pounds. In spite of his knack for killing women, and even without the handcuffs and drawn guns, Taladyne was no match for anyone in the room.

“How long’s it been, Jamie?” Grace repeated. “A year and a half since you walked away from Millie Brown’s murder free and clear?”

Orlando smacked him across the face. “Answer the man.”

Taladyne grimaced as he shook off the blow. “It’s been a while,” he said in a low, raspy voice.

Matt watched Grace take in the room. The place was a dump. It seemed obvious to Matt that money was a real issue here. As he glanced at the walls in need of fresh paint, the dilapidated furniture, the grime that seemed to coat every surface, he thought about the way the victims had been left. He thought about seeing Brooke Anderson staked to the ground and the predatory desire of the killer for money and power and a way out of this hole. Dante’s epic poem and the seven Ps carved into Virgil’s forehead, each one removed by an angel as he passed through the seven terraces of the seven deadly sins. He thought about the victim’s faces, each one carved and ruined and seemingly beyond an angel’s grace. He was staring at Taladyne and still wondering how it all fit. Still thinking about the questions Dr. Baylor had raised in his office the other day.

If these murders are about greed, why are the victims so young?

His mind surfaced. He could hear Grace’s ether-like voice wafting in the air again.

“Do you live here alone, Jamie?”

“This is my sister’s place.”

“Where is she?”

Taladyne paused a moment, reluctant. “Visiting our parents,” he said.

“Where?”

“The North Pole, you asshole. What’s it to you?”

Orlando smashed him in the face again.

“Where?” Grace repeated.

“Seattle.”

Plank walked back into the house carrying a cardboard box. Grace glanced his way, then turned to Taladyne.

“Which bedroom is yours?”

“The one on the right. Why?”

Grace didn’t answer but nodded at Plank, who vanished down the hall with the box. After a few moments a light came on in a room at the other end of the house. Whatever they were up to had been planned and required props. Matt was more than curious but couldn’t pull himself away from the view through the window. Grace had just pushed the muzzle of the shotgun into Taladyne’s chest. And that smile of his was back, along with those hollow gray eyes that matched the color of his hair.

“Tell me, Jamie. When you moved in to live with your sister, did you call the police and let them know that you’re a sex offender?”

“Yeah, sure. You guys were my first call.”

“Do you think that what you did is funny?”

Taladyne just looked at him.

“You’re a real ladies’ man, Jamie. You’ve got a gift. All the same, I can’t believe that a loser like you beat a polygraph.”

Taladyne stewed in silence, tugging on the short chain between the handcuffs.