Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) (7 page)

The fury of the Santa Anas was turning L.A. into a tinderbox, Sammy realized. As she traveled along Pico, the usual clusters of ragged men and women she’d often see huddled in the dark doorways of closed storefronts had been driven away by the winds. Instead, scraps of litter danced above deserted pavements like confetti, but with no living souls standing by to enjoy the parade. Where were these poor homeless victims sleeping tonight?

Less than a mile away was the Avenue of the Stars, a wide tree-lined boulevard of luxury shopping and opulent high-rise hotels where heads of state and Hollywood stars paid thousands a night for a suite. Except for the swaying and flickering Christmas lights strung along its median, the avenue was deserted too. Century City residents were no doubt celebrating their wealth inside the glass, chrome, and steel towers that kept them safe from the winds—and the homeless.

Passing the grand Fox Plaza skyscraper, Sammy recognized the address of her father’s new corporate offices. When she’d talked with his second ex a few months ago, Susan had mentioned something about her father moving to Century City as his business grew. Now that Sammy was in L.A., she made a mental note to pay Susan a personal call. That summer between freshman and sophomore year, Sammy had come here to reach out to her father, but it was her stepmother who’d made the visit bearable. Sammy’s father? Well, people could be unavailable even if they lived in the same city or the same house.

Wiping a tear from her eyes, Sammy muttered, “Damn winds!” and pushed the dashboard button switching the ventilation to recirculate.

After swinging west on Santa Monica Boulevard, she arrived in Westwood within minutes. A right on Sepulveda brought her to the gates of L.A. University. The Schwarzenegger Hospital and its emergency room, a small part of the enormous LAU Medical Center, were located just inside the south gate off Montana. Sammy parked the Tercel in the hospital parking lot beside two media vans and walked around to the emergency entrance. At least a dozen teenaged Courtney Phillips fans, some looking as stoned as their idol, were standing vigil behind yellow police tape, waving and mugging for the local reporters filming updates on Courtney’s condition in the ER driveway.

Sammy pushed past the group and strode toward the entrance.

The uniformed guard held up a hand to block her. “You can’t come in unless you’re a patient.”

  Experience had taught Sammy to try honey before vinegar. Flashing a warm smile, she reached into her purse and pulled out a paper bag holding her uneaten dinner sandwich and banana. Looking at the sea of press and groupies, she shook her head sympathetically. “Tough job, I don’t know how you do it. I’m Dr. Reed Wyndham’s fiancée. He said he was hungry.”

“Heart doc, right?” the guard asked, squinting.

Sammy nodded. “It’s been a long night.”

“I’ll say. Go ahead on in.” He winked, “And, hey, next time, I’ll take a ham on rye.”

Sammy waved and returned his smile. “You got it,” she promised as she stepped inside the ER’s double doors.

Sylvie’s apartment was in one of the older buildings on Ashland Street, surrounded by tiny aging boxes—single-family bungalows with grills on the windows—that sold for over a million dollars. Despite its vintage, this former working-class neighborhood’s proximity to the beach and good schools now attracted upwardly mobile young professionals who gladly paid hefty monthly rents for a westside address.

Ana scurried through her building’s unlit courtyard and up the side stairs to the third floor. Even before she reached 3B, she sensed something amiss. The door to her apartment, which she was sure they’d locked, was slightly ajar. Beyond, only darkness. Ana paused, waiting, listening for any sounds, but all she could hear were the violent winds rustling through the leaves and branches of the nearby trees.

Tentatively, her body pressed against the wall, she nudged the door open with her foot and waited. Nothing happened. She carefully inched her head closer to peek inside, ready to jump back at a moment’s notice. Again, nothing. Finally, after scanning the hallway one more time, she tiptoed over to the doorframe and reached in to flick on the light switch.

Her jaw dropped as she viewed the scene. The entire living room had been trashed. Papers were tossed everywhere, bookcases upended, and CDs scattered all over the floor. Even the cushions on the sofa bed where she slept had been slashed. Neither kitchen nor bathroom had escaped the devastation. My God, what were they looking for?

It’d been over a year since Sylvie had stopped dealing. She and Ana had been doing so well with clients, it was no longer worth the risk. The coke Sylvie used herself appeared untouched, still in the sugar bowl next to the tea cozy. They must have been after money. Ana checked inside the box of tampons under the bathroom sink. The four hundred dollars she’d hidden there had disappeared. Damn.

Sylvie’s jewelry. Most of it was paste, but Sylvie did have a few genuine pieces she’d gotten from some of her favorite clients as gifts. Ana raced into Sylvie’s bedroom, to find it similarly ravaged. Everything, from the bed linens to the clothes in the closet had been tossed onto the carpet. Sylvie’s jewelry box, hidden inside a now open Payless shoe box was missing. Money and jewelry. Shit.

Ana caught the reflection in the mirror and gasped. Sylvie’s computer was smashed into tiny pieces on her desk. Ana spun around and stared at the damage, shocked by the violence of the destruction. This was not the work of a common burglar. Whoever had done this must have felt incredible rage.

A wave of dizziness overwhelmed her. She knew she couldn’t stay in the apartment another minute. Forcing herself to calm down and breathe more slowly, she quickly dressed in a clean T-shirt and jeans, and exchanged her designer heels for clean socks and tennis shoes. Money. She needed money. Ana remembered that Sylvie had kept a few dollars of “just-in-case” funds in a special location somewhere in her closet. But where?

Sylvie’s words came back to her. Payless, remember? Of course. The Payless box. Sylvie’d always kept that in the middle of the closet as a joke. Grabbing a sturdy kitchen knife, Ana pushed the box aside to pry up the wooden slats. Slowly, they creaked loose to reveal a small hole where a wad of twenty dollar bills lay wrapped around a thick disk. Ana pocketed the money and frowned as she examined the disk. It was thicker than a typical 3 1/2 inch floppy and had only the label Jazz etched into the plastic. Sylvie had dated a musician recently, so maybe the disk contained her boyfriend’s music. But then why not keep it with her CDs near the stereo? This had to be Sylvie’s Plan B.

The faint sound of a siren far in the distance jarred Ana into action. The police might be on their way to the apartment. They had her ID and address inside the charred purse on Sylvie’s gurney. Ana opened Sylvie’s pristine purse and fished out her roommate’s cell phone and her thin wallet with its license and money. No point in leaving something else for visitors to steal.

She threw Sylvie’s purse on the closet floor, stuffed the wallet, the money, and the disk in one pocket, the phone in another, then ran back to the kitchen to replace the large knife with a smaller one that slid into the waistband of her jeans. The answering machine by the kitchen counter was blinking. Estimating the sirens to still be a few blocks away, Ana pushed the play button. The first two calls were hang ups, followed by a message from Kaye: “Ana, where are you? Call me as soon as you get in. We have to talk.”

Ana erased the voice mail. She was in no mood to talk to anyone just yet. Not Kaye and certainly not the police. It would be daylight in a few hours. She had to get away while she could. Right now she needed to find a safe place to hide and to rest.

As the sirens grew louder, Ana rushed out the door and down the back stairs to the alley behind the building. Through the yards of the houses she passed, she could see the flashing red lights of police cars speeding toward her address. By the time the black-and-whites had arrived at the apartment, Ana was at least ten blocks away, at the neighborhood play area and park. Filled with mothers, nannies, and young children during the day, the playground was deserted after dark, except for a few of Ana’s old homeless friends who sought shelter among the trees. Tonight she would join them.

Only hours before, she and Sylvie had been mingling with the glitterati. And now, as her luck would have it, the glitter had burned away to ashes.

Reed was writing orders for Prescott’s admission to the CCU, enjoying the silence of the doctors’ lounge, when the door squeaked open. He smiled broadly as Michelle shuffled in and parked her five foot nine frame down in a chair beside him. She was one visitor he welcomed. In fact, he’d been struck by her California-blonde beauty at the hospital orientation months ago, but had only found time to ask her out weeks later. Between his schedule as a cardiac fellow and hers as a new resident, most of their dates were casual encounters over coffee in the hospital cafeteria or under the sheets in the doctors’ call room.

Their conversations were brief, stolen time away from patients and responsibilities. Still, he’d learned enough to know they shared much in common. Michelle’s father was a successful Santa Barbara stockbroker, her privileged background mirroring his as the son of a rich New England banker. Though the physical attraction was genuine, he knew something was missing. Michelle hadn’t made his heart do somersaults the way Sammy Greene had that night they’d met.

But he was older now, and somersaults were a little harder to handle. He had come to the conclusion that relationship success for him was more likely with the familiar rather than the unpredictable. After the pain of his affair with Sammy, Reed was less inclined to seek challenges again.

Now Michelle’s exaggerated sigh made him ask, “Bad night?”

“First the crazy cannibal.” She pointed to the fresh bandage on her right ear where she’d been bitten. “Then the burn victim.”

Reed knew she’d had no rest for the past twenty hours. Thirty-six hour shifts were routine for first years. But her wide hazel eyes reflected sadness more than fatigue.

“Didn’t make it?”

Michelle just shook her head.

Reed patted her arm. “With the extent of her burns, the odds were against her.”

“I know.” Michelle pulled the rubber band from her ponytail and let her long blonde tresses fall loosely around her face. “But that doesn’t make it easier.” She choked on the last word and looked away.

“No,” he whispered, “no, it doesn’t.” He reached an arm over to her, pulling her close. “The best we can is all we can do.” He brushed a few strands of hair from her face and leaned over to meet her lips with his.

“Where? I’ve been looking all over this ferdemta place.” From the other side of the door, the New York accent was unmistakable. The Yiddish curse nailed it.

“In here? Thanks.” The door opened, admitting the voice that had once belonged to a mischievous pixie. It now belonged to a mature young woman whose red hair fell softly across strong shoulders, and whose bright green eyes quickly focused on his. Her left hand held a rather bruised banana.

“Hey, Reed,” she said, without batting a long lash, “Hungry?”

Blushing, Reed disentangled himself and eased a few inches away from a frowning Michelle. “Sammy? What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t mean to interrupt your work,” Sammy said, “I just thought you might like to share breakfast, seeing as we were both doing graveyard.”

“Night shift is what she means,” Reed explained to Michelle.

“Yup, radio talk.” Smiling, Sammy extended her right hand. “Sammy Greene on the L.A. Scene. KPCF. And you are?”

“Michelle Hunt.” Though Michelle shook Sammy’s hand, her tone was decidedly cold. “I take it you and Reed are friends.”

“Well, uh,” Reed stammered.

The lounge door opened again and the uniformed guard stuck his head in the room. “There you are, Dr. Reed. Dr. Bishop asked me to find you. He’s in the heart suite with the big cheese.” The guard nodded at Sammy. “Your fiancée can wait here.”

Reed struggled to compose himself as he hurried to the ER’s cardiovascular suite. Amazing how after all these years, Sammy could just appear and throw him off kilter. The hurt look on Michelle’s face was sure to set their nascent relationship back to the word go. Or stop.

Entering the suite, Reed was surprised to find his chief already at Prescott’s side, examining the congressman. Bishop was a lean man with razor-cut gray hair and military bearing fostered by his years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and as an Army MASH unit commander in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. According to the hospital buzz, after Bishop made colonel during the Gulf War, he’d been on his way to a couple of stars and an influential billet at the Pentagon. But in ninety-three, he’d inexplicably decided to retire into the private sector and academia. LAU Med was quick to snap up one of the nation’s leading cardiovascular experts. For Reed it was a chance to train with the best.

Normally dressed in sharp, tailored suits, tonight Bishop wore an open-necked polo shirt and khakis, evidence that he’d rushed to get to the hospital for his VIP patient. Seeing Reed, Bishop pulled the stethoscope from his ears and cracked a trace of a smile.

“Nicely done, Reed.” Not given to effusive praise, Bishop added that he’d already reviewed the videos of the procedure in the cath lab and had been impressed with both the technique and the result. “Dr. Wyndham here saved Neil’s life, Julia,” he told the attractive fifty-something brunette hovering anxiously just behind them.

Hiding confusion, Reed smiled at the dignified woman who reached over and clasped her husband’s hand. Hadn’t Lou said Prescott’s wife was very young and blonde?

“Thank you, Dr. Wyndham, from the bottom of my heart.”

Prescott’s intense stare telegraphed an unspoken message.

Nodding at the congressman, Reed understood what was expected of him. Something he’d learned as an adolescent dealing with his father’s same penchant for attractive young mistresses. Smile, and keep up pretenses at all cost. “You’re very welcome, Mrs. Prescott. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of your husband.”