L.A. Boneyard (4 page)

“Ah, no,” David said.

“What-what’s a coffin birth?” Jairo, looking more than a little green around the edges.

“When a pregnant woman dies before the baby comes to term, the baby dies too, naturally. Once gases inside the uterus expand, they push the fetus out the birth canal—”

Jairo backed away from the grave. David had to give him credit, he made it past the barrier tape before he threw up the pitiful lunch they’d consumed little over two hours ago.

22 P.A. Brown

Jairo refused to meet anyone’s eyes when he returned. Lopez handed him a stick of Wrigley’s which he took gratefully. David suppressed a smile. Got them every time. Still, he wondered what was wrong with him that he felt so little. Shouldn’t he be as horrified as Jairo by what they’d found? Except, it was too much like a hundred other crime scenes he’d attended since he’d made detective.

Mother and child were laid out on separate sheets, then tucked into body bags. David saw the way Jairo’s wary eyes watched every move the technicians made. He dragged his gaze away and met David’s.

“You can attend the post. Lopez will tell you when,” David said. “Make sure you take lots of notes.”

He could tell Jairo wanted to refuse, but in the end he just grimaced and nodded curtly. “Yes. Dr. Lopez?”

“I might be able to get to it tomorrow, early afternoon.

Provided there aren’t any major incidents.”

“Head over there after lunch,” David said. Jairo only nodded.

David’s cell phone chirped. It was Chris.

“You heading home soon?”

David pulled his watch out; it was after five. He turned away from Jairo. “Can’t say. I doubt it. Don’t keep supper.”

Chris sighed. “Des and I are going out to lunch tomorrow.

But I wanted to make reservations next weekend for us.”

“Reservations? What for?”

“It’s Valentine’s day. I know it’s actually this weekend, but we’d never get a reservation this late. Plus I signed that contract today. Tell me we can at least do supper sometime in the next month.”

“I’m on rotation, but not first string, so unless things get crazy I should be good next weekend.”

“Where do you want to go?”

L.A. BONEYARD
23

“Surprise me.” David took a deep breath, all too aware of Jairo watching him. “You have any luck finding the dog’s owner?”

“The vet thinks if he’s a purebred he might have a microchip and we should be able to trace the owner with that.

But—”

“No buts, Chris, the dog’s not yours. For all you know someone’s worried sick about him.”

“Yeah, I saw how much care he got,” Chris muttered.

“Okay, okay. I’ll track the asshole down. You don’t mind if I give him a piece of my mind, do you?”

“Like I could stop you.” David grinned and was relieved when Chris laughed back.

“Don’t worry, I won’t give him more than I can spare.”

“That’s good. I’ll see you when I get there. Don’t wait up.”

He hung up. Jairo was still staring. “Your partner?”

“Yeah,” David said. “Come on, the day’s not getting any younger. We’ll lose our light soon.”

Shadows replaced the weak sunlight, and a sharp breeze sprung up, rolling off Cahuenga Peak. Chillingly a coyote howled nearby. A second one yipped back.

“Lining up at the smörgåsbord?” Jairo muttered.

“Don’t worry, they lost their chance at this one.”

“You got a dog?” At David’s look Jairo shrugged. “I heard you talking. We have one, big ugly lab, got an IQ of about ten.”

“No, we don’t have a dog. Long story.”

“You look like a dog guy to me.”

“How’s that?

“Some people just look like dog people. What kind of dog don’t you own?”

“Doberman. It’s a stray, we’re taking it back.”

“You mean you’re taking it back. Didn’t sound like Chris—

is that his name? That Chris isn’t so sure.”

24 P.A. Brown

“He’ll come around.”

Jairo snorted. “How long have you been together?”

“What’s that got to do with anything? Listen, we’re here to work, not jaw about family pets.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Smart ass. Like he didn’t get enough of that from Chris.

Saturday, 5:20 PM, Vista del Valle Drive, Griffith Park, Los Angeles
The coroner’s wagon trundled back out onto the road, followed by the eager hordes of media people who had showed up midday, trying to snatch a look at the grisly discovery. It must have been a busy news day; it usually didn’t take that long.

Buzzards took longer to find a corpse than a reporter. They crowded around the barrier tape, jostling and yelling at David.

“Come on, David,” a cameraman he recognized from Channel 5 trained his shoulder cam on them. “Throw us a bone here. Who’s the vic?”

“No can do, guys. You know better than that. Next of kin and all that.”

Roz Parnell, a reporter for the
L.A Times,
leaned over the yellow tape, her large breasts nearly popping out of her low cut blouse. She knew her charms were wasted on him. Instead her gaze arrowed in on Jairo. “Maybe your friend here can talk to us. How about it, sugar, what’s the scoop? Get your name in the paper.”

David was surprised when Jairo blushed and turned away from the reporters. David met Roz’s eyes. He smoothed the hair of his mustache. “Guess not everyone needs their fifteen minutes.”

The final shadows of the day crept out of the chaparral, and pooled in the grave, where the SID technicians still labored.

David decided he’d sign off, and release the site, once full darkness fell. They wouldn’t get anything else done tonight, and he knew the brass would be getting heat if the park road was closed for another day.

“Come on,” he said. “Grab a flashlight and let’s do one more grid.”

26 P.A. Brown

“You really think you’re going to find anything else?”

“Who knows. I’d rather take the time now than realize later we missed something. You only get one—”

“One chance,” Jairo said. “I know. I know. I took the academy course too.”

Jairo took the flashlight out of the trunk of his Firehawk. He flicked it on as he approached the grave, the beam sweeping across David’s feet, revealing the mud coating his wool pants.

David tuned everything out as he focused on the disturbed ground beyond the original grave, not knowing what he was looking for, only knowing he’d recognize it when he saw it.

The technicians were stowing their gear away. “Thanks, guys. Let’s call it a day—”

David put his hand on Jairo’s arm, stilling the sweeping beam of light. He pointed straight down at his toes. He crouched down, ignoring the wet earth seeping into his knees when they brushed the ground.

“What is it?”

David motioned the nearest tech to bring him an evidence bag. While he waited, he skimmed a pair of nitrile gloves on. He scooped something out of the mud and slid it into the bag.

He handed it up to the tech. “What’s it look like to you?”

The Tyvek-suited man turned the baggie over in his gloved hands. “Looks like a proximal phalanx.” He caught David’s look. “Finger bone.”

“Human?”

“Unless there’s a missing bear in the area, yes. Did you know that bear paws look almost identical to human—”

“Okay.” David waved them all out of the grave. He flipped his phone open and said to whoever answered, “I want a cadaver dog down here pronto. And bring some spots with you.

And the generator.”

“I take it this means we’re not going home,” Jairo said.

L.A. BONEYARD
27

“You’re not on the four-ten anymore. You don’t get to clock out at a sane hour and get three days off. Better call your wife. We’re going to be here a while. Pray the weather holds.”

Jairo pulled out his cell and spoke in soft Spanish to whoever answered.

Finally he said, “
Te quiero mi amor
. Don’t forget to take the dog out,” and disconnected.

He glanced at David’s empty hands. “I take it you’re not calling?”

“He knows better than to expect me.”

“You’re not going to tell me he likes it.”

“No,” David said shortly. “He doesn’t like it.”

It took over ninety minutes for the cadaver dog and his handler to arrive. They started out where David directed them, in the already excavated grave, confirming his suspicions. The dog almost immediately went into alert mode, barking at the ground to the left of the hole’s center.

“How do you know it’s not just smelling the other corpse?”

“They’re not that easily fooled.” Once the SID technicians got to work excavating the new patch of ground, David pulled the dog handler aside, with Jairo at his side. “Can you start a spiral search? I hope I’m wrong, but let’s make sure there aren’t any more.”

The dog handler nodded and began to circle the grave.

“You think they’re related?” Jairo asked.

“We proceed like they’re not.”

“You can’t believe that.”

“No, but it’s the way we’ll play it until we confirm, one way or another.”

“If you didn’t have such a high solve rate, I’d think you were a doddering old fool.”

David raised one eyebrow at him, hoping there was a but.

Jairo didn’t disappoint.

28 P.A. Brown

“Anyone with your rate of solved homicides must know something.”

“Glad you think so.”

They set up the spotlights in a loose ring around the grave; David made sure some of the light spilled over the outer perimeter, where the dog was diligently snuffling along the ground. After several hours of searching and digging, they’d freed the blanket-wrapped corpse from the ground, and found no traces of more bodies.

This body was almost entirely skeletonized. A few moldering strands of cloth, and a clump of blond hair, were collected from outside the thick synthetic blanket, that might have been a comforter, and labeled.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the hair will have roots,” David said. “We can pull DNA out of those. If not, we can always get mDNA, that traces back through the maternal line. Lopez can take over this tomorrow. She might decide to bring in a forensic anthropologist.”

“You mean like Bones?”

“Yeah, like Bones, only for real. Not Hollywood.”

“Nothing wrong with Hollywood.”

David grimaced. “Don’t tell me you really are a player?”

“I’ve had a few parts,” Jairo seemed proud. “Maybe you saw me.”

“I doubt it. I don’t watch much TV outside of sports.”

“My agent says I could be the next Michael Hall.” Off David’s confused look he grinned. “Dexter.”

Now that David had heard about. “Ah, a show that celebrates serial killers. Good role model.”

“Hey, it’s not real.”

Having dealt with his share of serial murderers, David disagreed. But he kept his opinion to himself. “Come on, we can get all this stuff logged into evidence. Then maybe we can even get home before the bars close.”

“That an invitation?”

L.A. BONEYARD
29

“What? No, I didn’t mean that—”

“
No es problema
. I just wanted to pick your brain some more.”

The cadaver dog didn’t have any luck after another hour.

The handler praised the animal and gave him a treat before he loaded the dog back in his van. SID wrapped up too. The floods were dismantled and stowed away. Jairo put his own flashlight back in the trunk. He met David around the driver’s side.

David eyed the gleaming white car. “Nice set of wheels. You do your own work?”

“Every piece of it. She’s all mine.”

“I’ll have mine with me tomorrow. We can trade war stories.”

“Sure, no such thing as too much car talk.”

He clearly didn’t know Chris. His lover had little use for any kind of vehicle, unless it cost a mint and was a hot property, even if he’d had to settle for a Ford Escape when he’d launched his own business four years ago. He still dreamed of lush wheels and trendy little emblems. He loved the end result of David’s work on the Chevy ‘56 two-tone sport coupe that had consumed over six years, but always got glassy-eyed when David actually talked about the work he had done on it.

They were alone at the crime scene. David waited for Jairo to sign the log book, then he did the same, and officially released the site.

“Meet you back at the station,” Jairo said and slipped into his car. He revved the engine and spun around in a circle, vanishing down the road, toward Los Feliz in a cloud of dust.

David climbed behind the wheel of his Crown Vic, and sat there for several minutes, running over the day’s events. Jairo was right on one thing, the case didn’t look good for an easy solve. Too many unknowns, including the identities of the victims, and the actual location of the deaths. And unless the post gave them something more concrete, this kind of homicide did have a lousy close rate.

30 P.A. Brown

He debated calling Chris, deciding not to. Once he told Chris he was all but done for the night, he’d want him to come home. But David didn’t feel like going home just yet. Chris had been in such a bad mood lately. If he waited long enough maybe he’d be in bed when he got there, and hopefully in a better mood tomorrow.

Maybe a beer would be a good idea. He could unwind and put this thing in perspective.

Jairo was at his desk—the one Martinez had occupied until he’d been sent to the 77th Street Area Community Police Station to work in their gang detail—the phone pinned under his chin, a pen in his hand. He looked up when David entered the room.

He finished up his conversation and wrote up some notes.

“Still want to grab that beer?” David asked.

“Sure,” he said. “You said you like sports?”

“Yeah, you know a place?”

“Leo’s All-Star Sports Bar, up in La Crescenta.”

David had never heard of it. “Why not.”

“How about I drive? You can tell me what you think of the wheels. I’ll drop you back here, later.”

The bar was packed and noisy. A juke box poured out country laments and the place reeked of hops and jalapeños.

Every wall was full of TVs, including a giant projection screen that filled one whole wall.